The Daily Princetonian: October 24, 2025

Inside the Princeton University Art Museum

By Victoria Davies head News Editor

After 10 years of planning and construction the wait is nearly over.

The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) will reopen its doors in a matter of days, with Princeton students getting the first look on Saturday, Oct. 25, followed by members of the museum on Oct. 26. The museum will open to the public starting at 5 p.m. on Halloween with a 24hour opening event.

Home to 270 years of collected items, 5,000 years-old art pieces, a 12,000 square feet education

center, 32 galleries, and a thirdfloor restaurant looking out onto campus, the museum “is meant to be welcoming,” Chris Newth, Senior Associate Director for Collections and Exhibitions, told The Daily Princetonian during a pre-opening tour of the building.

The building adopts unorthodox techniques to get there — threequarter-height walls, art in unusual places, and a segmented concrete facade — that largely pay off.

PUAM is composed of nine major pavilions. The ground floor consists of the Haskell Education Center (including the Grand Hall), two artwalks equipped

Eisgruber calls Trump compact ‘a dangerous step in the wrong direction’

By Kian Petlin Staff News Writer

University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 spoke out against the Trump administration’s higher education compact in a LinkedIn post on Oct. 10, calling the proposed agreement on university funding “a dangerous step in the wrong direction.”

“It should be withdrawn, and we should work together to find better ways to strengthen the research enterprise on which America so vitally depends,” Eisgruber wrote.

He also thanked the presidents of the Association of American Universities (AAU),

and the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) for opposing the compact, which was sent to nine universities, including Brown, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania in early October.

Universities that accept the compact would be granted preferential access to federal funding in exchange for agreeing to a comprehensive vision for the Trump administration’s educational priorities. So far, seven of the nine universities initially approached have refused.

The compact seeks to upend Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) admissions practices, de-

SUNDAY MOVIES GO OR BLUE LAWS GO

Opinion On dining, don’t Harvard our Princeton

By Rodrigo C.L. Menezes Guest Contributor

Rwith outlets, chairs, and tables stretching across the museum in two directions, the museum store, and a gallery for temporary exhibitions, currently hosting “Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay.”

“We designed this space to be for the community,” Newth said of the artwalks. “We’ll be very happy if someone is just sitting there, doing their work or chatting or honestly, watching Netflix.”

The building will be open from 8 a.m. to 10:45 p.m. The galleries themselves will open at 10 a.m. every day except Sunday, when

FEATURES

Like Austen’s

ecently, Princeton University announced a policy that would require members of eating clubs and co-ops living in University housing to buy a second meal plan, costing about $900 a year. I, along with all the other members of the Graduate Interclub Council (GICC), believe that this policy would be disastrous for Princeton’s undergraduate experience. First, let’s start with the obvious: It’s wrong to ask people to pay for something that they neither need nor want. If students already have a meal plan, and the University is confident that they are not experiencing food insecurity, then there is no need to give students an unnecessary burden. There is little evidence of demand for dining hall

meals among eating club members; according to University data provided to the GICC in 2022, students on eating club plans on average used fewer than one of their two free Universitysponsored meals per week.

Second, this policy will create financial stress for some students. While the University has graciously offered to cover this meal plan for upperclassmen already receiving financial aid, there will remain students who don’t qualify for aid but still face significant financial burdens. I’ve met a number of these students, whose families often come from high cost-of-living areas or who have significant medical expenses. Many of them take loans or have jobs to make ends meet. This policy incentivizes them to drop out of their eating

See DINING page 12

Emma, Jeff Nunokawa can’t resist

By Lola Horowitz Contributing Features Writer

I’m thirteen minutes into an interview with Professor Jeff Nunokawa when I realize he’s been interviewing me. He’s coaxed me towards an autobiographical ramble about my parents’ impending divorce, my inseparableness from my mother, and our unconventional Manhattan shoebox apartment.

At the time, a piece of me couldn’t fathom that I’d confessed so much to a stranger. Now that I know him, I know that this is how he is. He couldn’t resist trying to understand me.

Nunokawa has been teaching in Princeton’s English Department since 1988 and still remains a must-see attraction for Princeto-

nians. But for all the theatrics of his pedagogical performance, he’s most arresting one-on-one.

We retreated to his office, snacking on cashews. Ideas and references and existential questions poured from Nunokawa as he reclined in his chair, legs crossed at the ankles on his desk, sprawling towards me when particularly moved by a thought.

The office itself is a similarly whirling inventory of life and mind: fortresses of books in every nook, shelf, and a shopping cart. Walls papered with postcards and photographs, clippings and maps.

The typical Nunokawa lecture is an overload, too. It unfolds like this: Nunokawa stands center stage, clutching a page of “Jane Eyre” quotes, pronouncing an excerpt about the monotonous protagonist’s life with the vociferous-

ness of a politician, “School rules and duties and habits and notions and voices and faces and phrases and costumes!” He never breaks for breath and, before long, is relating Victorian literature to a Zippy the Pinhead comic. “All life is a blur of Republicans and meat!” Nunokawa’s signature for decades has been 19th Century Fiction, a course devoted to nineteenth-century novels from Jane Austen to George Eliot. Not a single student sitting in McCosh 28 can doze off or duck from sight when Nunokawa is a watchful whirlwind pacing the lecture stage. His enunciated speech punctuated by flailing gesticulations and passionate yells, occasionally interrupted by a childhood anecdote or a Paul Newman movie reference, render the Victorian themes relevant to the

This Week In History

In 1947, bound by New Jersey’s “Blue Laws,” Princetonians struggled to fill their long Sundays with secular activities. At the time, Mercer County residents were prohibited from conducting commercial activity during the Christian Sunday Sabbath, unable to engage in nonessential travel and leisure.

Courtesy of Richard Barnes

Integrated glass cases holding around 400 vases, bowl, and other objects looking down onto the Grand Hall from the second floor.

Newth: the museum ‘is meant to be welcoming’

MUSEUM

Continued from page 1

they will open at noon. They will close at 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and 5 p.m. on all other days.

Described by Newth as “the heart of the building,” the Grand Hall is a multipurpose space, stretching three floors with skylights opening into the room. The room can be converted into a 250-person lecture hall but typically houses couches and tables.

“If you bring your coffee in, that’s fine. If you bring your bagel in, that’s fine,” Newth said, emphasizing the space as one for community. “People can just camp out and speak with their friends.”

The bulk of the museum’s collections are located on the second floor, accessible via the Grand Stair. Immediately upon reaching the top of the stairs, visitors are surrounded by art in the Orientation Gallery that is not restricted by the gallery hours.

“We acknowledge that not everybody can go to a museum between 10 and five,” Newth said. “This is a great space, and it’s meant to give a glimpse of … a globe-spanning collection.”

The space takes advantage of natural light pouring in from the west side, and showcases a number of stained glass windows from as early as the 13th century using artificial lighting.

“[There are] fun juxtapositions between the building and art to help people not just learn but ex-

ALUMNI

perience art,” Newth said.

The second floor balcony also exhibits a number of paintings, including Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn Monroe” and Frank Stella’s “River of Ponds II,” and looks out over Nick Cave’s PUAM-commissioned mosaic, “Let me kindly introduce myself. They call me MC Prince Brighton,” his largest work to date.

Seven of the nine pavilions are divided into galleries by walls reaching only most of the way to the ceiling, creating open galleries which merge into one another. The other two pavilions are Marquand Library (central-north pavilion) and the Paul & Heather Haaga Conservation Studios (central-south pavilion).

“I think the designers did a wonderful job creating these walls such that you get that distinction [between galleries],” Newth said. “It doesn’t make you feel like you’re in some confined space [but] I think they also went high enough that it doesn’t seem like some temporary wall.”

Although the art within the pavilions is arranged mostly geographically some exceptions exist throughout galleries.

“We have very intentionally mixed in some non-European art [into the European pavilion] and that’s true of other pavilions as well,” Newth said.

Newth pointed to two significant artworks on show that have carried over from the previous art museum.

“George Washington at the Battle of Princeton” is positioned in the entrance to the American Art

pavilion in the south-west corner of the museum with a bust of George Washington on either side.

“That’s a piece that people come to Princeton for, and we wanted to make sure that people can find it without much challenge,” Newth told the ‘Prince.’

The signature Guanyin sculpture similarly welcomes visitors to the Asian Art pavilion on the west side of PUAM. The sculpture is raised slightly, looking down at visitors.

“We tried to display it in the way that it was meant to be experienced in its original context,” Newth described.

The south-east pavilion of the museum is a second temporary exhibition space. The current exhibition is “Princeton Collects,” celebrating many donations to PUAM over the last four years. The next planned exhibit in the space is “Photography as a Way of Life,” opening April 18, 2026.

The north-east pavilion is dedicated to modern and contemporary art and is also home to one of the three viewing rooms.

The final two pavilions are dedicated to Ancient Mediterranean art (east side) and Art of the Ancient Americas (central, surrounding the Grand Hall). A small section of the second floor is also dedicated to photography.

The hallways, meanwhile, feature glass cases embedded in the walls holding “dense displays” — some 400 vases, bowls, and other objects surrounding the Grand Hall from all sides, most aligning with the pavilion the shelving is

closest to.

“The curators were asked to put together object displays that visually look very interesting,” Newth said. “It allowed us to bring things out of storage that would otherwise not be on view.”

The second floor also includes three viewing rooms, to take a break, meditate, or get lost in thought, Newth described. Each contains fewer than five pieces of art, with a place to sit and windows looking out onto campus or elsewhere in the museum.

The viewing room attached to the European pavilion additionally houses a grand piano — part of PUAM’s collections — which will be used for programmed recitals, although not for use by a typical visitor.

The museum’s non-gallery space also includes an education center with two so-called “creativity labs” for making art, two seminar rooms, Tuttle Lecture Hall, and five object-study classrooms, with an additional objectstudy room on the second floor of the museum.

The object-study rooms house additional dense displays of art to be studied in classes throughout the semester. The displays, according to Newth, may change depending on what classes are running.

The previous art museum “hosted about 200 classes a semester,” Newth said. “We’re prepared to use [the object-study rooms] a lot… Students will be able to be in the rooms with the objects on tables.”

Now located in the south pavil-

ion of the building, the conservation studio has been expanded from one room to two floors. The pavilion also contains the sixth object-study room, which will be primarily dedicated to conservation classes.

The third floor of the museum is dedicated to the Mosaic Restaurant and staff offices. Set to open on Nov. 1, the restaurant has both indoor and outdoor seating looking out over the west facade of the art museum and will be open for breakfast and lunch Thursday–Monday.

Smaller details in the museum resonate, too. Scattered throughout the museum, including in the David Nasher Haemisegger Gallery, are a number of wooden benches, carved from trees that were removed during the construction of PUAM. The benches were commissioned as “part of the commitment to sustainability” on campus, Newth said.

The public opening on Oct. 31 will feature movie screenings, Halloween parties and costume contests, and collection tours, among other events.

“If you’re out on the town, please come by afterwards,” Newth said of the Halloween opening. “If people are out and they don’t want to go back to their dorms, they can come over here for a movie.”

Victoria Davies is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Plymouth, England and typically covers University operations and the Princeton University Art Museum.

‘A willingness to forge new ground’: Nobel laureate and her Ph.D. advisor discuss time at Princeton

By Andrew Bosworth Research Editor

“We knew it was a significant finding, but there was so much more to do,” Nobel laureate Mary Brunkow GS ’91 told The Daily Princetonian. “I never imagined that initial discovery, right at the outset, would be so key and recognized 25 years later to have such a lasting impact in the field.”

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced on Oct. 6 that Brunkow, alongside two other researchers, had been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Brunkow’s contribution to the award-winning research on peripheral immune tolerance is from her 2001 work at Darwin Molecular Corporations (Celltech Chiroscience), in Bothell, Wash.

According to the Nobel press release, Shimon Sakaguchi made the first of two key discoveries in 1995, showing that “the immune system is more complex and discover[ing] a previously unknown class of immune cells,” now known as regulatory T cells.

The second key discovery came from Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell in 2001, who uncovered why a “specific mouse strain was particularly vulnerable to autoimmune diseases.”

Sakaguchi then linked these two discoveries in 2003, showing the gene — Foxp3 — discovered in mice in 2001 has a human equivalent

which controls the development of regulatory T cells. The discoveries have since led to the development of treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases, some of whom are now undergoing clinical trials.

Despite winning this award for a single research development, Brunkow and Sakaguchi have never met. Brunkow said that if Darwin had remained open, she may have stayed on the project. Instead, she changed paths and now focuses more on genetics and genomics than immunology.

Brunkow’s drive to investigate previously unturned stones began well before 2001 — a drive evident even as a graduate student at Princeton. When former University President Shirley Tilghman arrived at Princeton as a molecular biology professor in 1986, Brunkow was one of the first graduate students to join her lab.

“One of the things I gave Mary a huge amount of credit for was her willingness to embark on the study of a gene that could potentially end up being pretty boring, but turned out it really wasn’t boring at all,” Tilghman said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “It was the first example of what are now called long non-coding RNA genes. And it turns out there’s many examples of them out there, it’s just that we had stumbled on the very first one.”

“It shows in Mary a level of courage and a willingness to forge new ground, and I think that charac-

teri zed the work that she went on to do quite a few years after she left my lab,” Tilghman continued.

“I think that the seeds of Mary Brunkow’s greatness were evident even when she was a graduate student.”

Brunkow, however, disagreed with Tilghman’s assessment of the lab’s initial work, saying it was in no way boring to her.

“The great unknown was of great interest to me, and I really jumped into it,” Brunkow said.

“It could well have flopped and gone away, but it became a really i teresting story.”

After Princeton, Brunkow conducted postdoctoral research

with a retrovirologist at what was then the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute (now LTRI) from 1990–94 in Toronto, Canada, aiming to leverage mouse genetics to help human diseases.

“I started feeling like I appreciated the super basic research, but for myself, I wanted to be closer to something that was more goaldriven to better human kind — something that would be more translational and applied to medicine,” Brunkow said. “I thought that perhaps the biotechnology world would be a good place where there’s interesting work being done.”

At the biotechnology startup

Darwin, where Brunkow published her 2001 Nature Genetics paper on the work that ultimately resulted in her Nobel Prize, Brunkow was working in research that had moved beyond Tilghman’s field.

“It is not always the case that Nobel Prizes go to virtuous people, and that’s because not all scientists are virtuous,” Tilghman said. “This is one case where the prize is going to a truly wonderful human being. And I think anybody who’s ever worked with Mary would say the same thing.”

Andrew Bosworth is the Research Editor for the ‘Prince.’

JEAN SHIN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Carl Icahn Lab on the right.

Eisgruber:

‘It should be withdrawn, and we should work together to find better ways to strengthen the research enterprise on which America so vitally depends’

COMPACT

Continued from page 1

fine gender “according to reproductive function and biological processes,” and establish a 15 percent cap on international student enrollment. Among other demands is the pursuit of a “vibrant marketplace of ideas” with a requirement to dismantle programs that “punish, belittle, and … spark violence against conservative ideas.”

Universities are considering the compact amid a broader pattern of concessions to federal directives targeting higher education institutions, including from Brown and UPenn — both of whom have rejected the compact. Most recently, the Texas Tech University system directed faculty to limit academic discussions of gender in the classroom, citing a Trump administration executive order.

Under the compact, universities would be subject to an annual determination of compliance, subject to review by the Department of Justice. Institutions accepting the compact’s terms would receive preferential consideration for federal research funds. “Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forgo federal benefits,” the compact also reads.

In statements, the AAU and AAC&U agreed with the compact that “American higher education is the envy of the world.” However, the AAU statement attributed this success to “the independence of … colleges and universities” while the AAC&U statement emphasized a “commitment to academic freedom.”

Both associations described the historic and continued im-

portance of the relationship between American higher education and the federal government.

Eisgruber is the chair of the AAU Board of Directors, sometimes also acting as spokesperson, particularly on issues related to federal policies impacting universities.

Echoing the AAU and AAC&U statements in his LinkedIn post, Eisgruber affirmed his alignment with many of the “general principles” outlined in the compact, welcoming “opportunities to work with the Trump administration” to strengthen university-federal partnerships.

However, in an interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN’s Global Public Square last week about his new book “Terms of Respect,” Eisgruber criticized the compact for infringing on universities’ right to decide what to teach.

“[The compact] is an example of using federal funds to try to control what it is universities are doing or teaching,” he said. “It’s going to erode the quality of the research and it’s going to erode academic freedom.”

In response to questions about DEI hiring practices and “very left-wing” course content at universities, Eisgruber spoke to his own context as the University’s president, describing a “relentless emphasis on excellence” he views as integral to Princeton’s hiring model.

“We bring talented people to the campus and we turn them loose,” he said.

Kian Petlin is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from San Francisco, Calif. and typically covers campus events and student life.

USG says current students were sidelined in dining and housing changes

By Kian Petlin Staff News Writer

Undergraduate Student Government (USG) representatives say they were left out of the loop on the changes to campus dining and housing announced last week, which have prompted significant backlash from students.

“USG was not involved in the decision-making process surrounding the dining and housing changes announced yesterday,” USG President Enzo Kho ’26 and Vice President Aishwarya Swamidurai ’26 wrote in a joint statement to The Daily Princetonian, adding that they had not been given prior notice of the changes.

Starting next fall, all juniors and seniors living on campus will be required to purchase a meal plan, effectively discontinuing the “independent” status for dining and housing. The changes have been met with frustration from independent students, eating clubs, and co-ops. Dining plan changes will impact some students’ financial aid refunds and could contribute to overcrowding in the dining halls.

In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ however, University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss stated that input from undergraduate students and USG played “a significant role in the updated housing and dining program.”

“We continually evaluate our housing and dining program, and feedback from students will inform future decisions — just as feedback over many years played an important role in developing the current plans,” he wrote.

Assistant Vice President of Finance and Administration Maureen McWhirter echoed this sentiment at a USG meeting on Sunday, telling assembled students, “You all haven’t necessarily been here through all of these conversations, but we have been engaging with students.”

McWhirter added that the changes had long been in the works, telling USG, “I know you said [the change] was sudden. It‘s actually not.”

Kho and Swamidurai told the ‘Prince’ that the University engaged with USG in a limited capacity on potential dining and housing changes last spring related to the Huron report, which took stock of

the state of campus dining.

“During our spring conversations with University leadership, we were made aware that changes to dining and housing were under consideration, given the Huron report and the changing budgetary landscape,” they wrote. “However, the scope, timeline, and exact details of those potential changes were not clearly defined at that time.”

According to Hotchkiss, University administrators led a discussion about dining and housing changes at a USG Undergraduate Student Life Committee meeting in April 2025.

Anuj Krishnan ’27, the undergraduate chair of the committee, said in an interview with the ‘Prince’ that the interaction consisted of a 15-minute presentation on the Huron report. “What really happened in the meeting was they just gave us a presentation, and then there was very little time to talk about it,” he said.

Hotchkiss provided the ‘Prince’ with a timeline of student input and involvement in planning around the undergraduate residential experience. Only the final instance of student engagement mentioned on the timeline — the April Student Life Committee meeting — explicitly mentions a discussion of future undergraduate dining and housing changes.

The statement from Hotchkiss also mentions the inclusion of the USG President — then Mayu Takeuchi ’23 — in the working group on the dining pilot program announced in 2022. A USG survey of undergraduate students at the time found that 74 percent of respondents held “mostly negative” views of the dining pilot program. A coalition of student leaders, including Takeuchi, even proposed an alternate plan to the administration.

Swamidurai told the ‘Prince’ that USG unanimously passed a resolution in 2022 calling for more transparency for the dining pilot from the Administration.

“The dining pilot was not co-administered or in collaboration with USG whatsoever,” said Swamidurai.

“It was not endorsed by USG. And in fact, quite the opposite happened.”

The University’s timeline of student engagement begins in 2016 with student participation in a task force on the residential college mod-

el, which released a report in February 2016. One of the task group’s recommendations was the creation of another task group to assess dining options for juniors and seniors and “propose new options, if appropriate.”

Hotchkiss said that the Princeton University Board Plan Review Committee met regularly with USG and solicited student feedback between 2016 and 2018.

The timeline continues with student participation in a 2018 task force on the eating club-University relationship, which released a report with new recommendations, including exploring “possible synergistic relationships between the eating clubs and the residential colleges.” Neither the 2010 nor 2018 reports made suggestions akin to the dining and housing changes announced last week by the University.

“We think there is a responsibility on the side of the administration to ensure that current students … have a say,” said Krishnan. “Current students really feel out of the loop, and we think that’s a big problem, because they’re the ones who live with the results of these policies.”

Kho and Swamidurai asserted that they advocated for continued USG and student involvement during discussions with University administrators last spring.

“Throughout, we consistently communicated that any future decisions should be informed by robust student input and preceded by meaningful engagement with the broader campus community,” they wrote.

Krishnan said that USG expects genuine engagement from the University with student concerns over dining changes, telling the ‘Prince,’ “[The University] has to make an effort to go to where students are, rather than expecting students to come to them with their concerns, because we know that this change is going to affect everyone.”

The University will hold two information sessions on the planned changes on Oct. 7 at 1 p.m. in McCosh 64 and Oct. 8 at 6:30 p.m. in Frist Multipurpose Room C.

Kian

Petlin is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from San Francisco, Calif. and typically covers campus events and student life.

SIENA SYDENHAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Choi dining hall.

Princeton to require SAT or ACT scores for applicants starting fall 2027, dropping test-optional policy

By Cynthia Torres Associate News Editor

Princeton will require undergraduate applicants to submit SAT or ACT test scores beginning with the 2027–28 admission cycle, the University announced Thursday. The decision will end a seven-year stint of test-optional undergraduate admissions that began during the pandemic.

Several peer institutions including Harvard, Penn, and Brown, have announced in the past year and a half that they would require standardized tests, with changes set to take place in the application cycles during the 2024–25 or 2025–26 school years. Yale, meanwhile, has adopted a test-flexible policy allowing students to choose from SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate scores to submit. Columbia has become permanently test-optional.

Many peer institutions had announced these changes in March or April to begin in the application cycle the next fall. The University’s announcement is significantly early in comparison, applicable beginning with the entering Class of 2032, students who will matriculate two admissions cycles from now in the fall of 2028.

Like many of its peers, the Uni-

versity said that test scores helped predict academic success among undergraduates.

“The decision to resume testing requirements follows a review of five years of data from the testoptional period, which found that academic performance at Princeton was stronger for students who chose to submit test scores than for students who did not,” the University said in a statement.

In June 2020, the University announced that it would pause its standardized testing requirement for the 2020–21 application cycle because of the COVID-19 pandemic and reduced access to testing centers.

It later extended that decision for the 2021–22, 2022–23, and 2023–24 admissions cycles.

The Class of 2029 is the first class to have experienced COVID-19 prior to high school. About 22% of the Class of 2029 did not submit test scores when applying, according to The Daily Princetonian’s Frosh Survey.

The only exception for score submissions will be for active military personnel, as their lack of access to testing sites may inhibit their ability to submit scores in the timeline that applications require.

“Active members of the military who opt to apply to Princeton with-

out an SAT or ACT score will not be at a disadvantage in our process,” the University said in its press release.

Princeton has maintained that its application review is holistic and not based on any one metric.

“Standardized testing is just one

element of the University’s comprehensive and holistic application review. There are no minimum test score requirements for admission. All information in each student’s application is considered in the student’s individual context,” the University said in its press release.

Cynthia Torres is an associate News editor, and archives contributor. She is from New Bedford, Massachusetts and typically covers University administration. She can be reached at ct3968[at]princeton.edu.

USG meeting hosts University administrators to discuss changes to dining plan

By Gray Collins

Controversy over changes to University meal plan options took center stage at the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) meeting on Sunday as administrators from the Office of University Services fielded questions from USG Vice President Aishwarya Swamidurai ’26 and audience members.

The discussion followed Monday’s announcement that the University would require students living on-campus to purchase a meal plan, effectively eliminating the independent meal option. The change comes with a new Block 32 plan for students in dining co-ops or eating clubs to replace the currently University-sponsored two dining hall meals per week.

The policy shift immediately prompted backlash from the Interclub Council,

co-op leaders, and financial aid recipients, who expressed their disappointment. USG leadership said they were not notified of any details before the changes were made public and were later distributed a survey to collect student feedback.

Drawing on roughly 200 survey responses with “around 17 percent” of respondents on the independent plan, Swamidurai pressed administrations on the reason behind the decision.

“All independent students reported that being independent has either increased their sense of belonging or has had no impact at all,” said Swamidurai.

“How did the administration decide that ending independent status should be the main solution for fixing isolation?”

Many of the other questions prepared by USG focused on edge cases with respect to the dining decision, such as transfer students with partners and students with allergies or religious dietary

restrictions.

Vice President for University Services Chad Klaus prefaced his answers to audience questions by stressing that the University representatives “did not come prepared with responses,” considering they were not provided with questions in advance.

Every respondent of the student survey on the independent dining plan reported that the independent option had either positive or neutral effects on their sense of belonging at Princeton. Additionally, the Huron report on dining did not indicate a causal relationship between the independent dining option and negative social impacts — a stated motivation for these changes.

“We do, in fact, know that over many long longitudinal studies, that those students who have had independent status have had less positive outcomes from their experience at Princeton,” said

Klaus. However, he acknowledged that there was room for uncertainty regarding the data’s accuracy.

“It’s true that I’m not certain that from a statistical perspective that we suggest that causation is from independent status and isolation,” he said.

Assistant Vice President of Finance and Administration Maureen McWhirter defended the new plan as part of longstanding discussions between the University and the student body. “One other thing about student engagement: I know you said [the change] was sudden. It’s actually not,” she said.

“You all haven’t necessarily been here through all of these conversations, but we have been engaging with students,” she added. Klaus also noted that the changes were developed in coordination with the Office of the Dean of the College and the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life.

The University will host information sessions about the new plan on Tuesday at 1 p.m. in McCosh 64 and Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Frist Multipurpose Room C.

According to Klaus, University Services is also exploring options to “see what might be technically feasible in the new room draw process to potentially mimic what we had prior for Spelman.” This process would be exclusive to Spelman and exclude other upperclass dorms which have large numbers of communal kitchens, but no in-suite kitchen layouts.

Administrators added that the University has “invested quite substantially in co-ops” over the past several years, and is evaluating dining hall seating expansions in the Rocky-Mathey and YehNew College West complexes to address lunchtime congestion.

Financial details for the new plan were also shared. “Going forward, [full aid packages] would be packaged at the cost of the midpoint of the eating clubs plus the cost of the Block 32 plan,” said Klaus. For students not on financial aid,

the administrators released preliminary cost estimates for the plans. In a statement later confirmed by the University, Deputy Vice President for University Services Debby Foster said that the intermediate Block 160 dining plan will cost approximately $4,500.

In the case of a student with Block 160 and on full financial aid, their refund “is going to be in the neighborhood of $6,500 to $7,000,” said Foster. However, she raised concerns that some students will use the money to support their families, rather than for meals.

“We know students have an impossible situation because they are torn between their family who needs money and they need to nourish themselves,” she said. “It is written in the rules that [the refund money] is intended to nourish the student.”

Regarding other USG matters, USG President Enzo Kho ’26 briefly recapped meetings with administrators on mental health and international students. He laid out an upcoming dinner between USG and PSafe, as well as a post-fall break USG senate workshop with 2019 USG President Rachel Yee.

Budget measures, including a commitment to fully fund speaker fees and a $1,500 reduction in expenditures for an upcoming student venture gala, passed unanimously.

Klaus concluded the discussion by reaffirming the University’s stance. “We aren’t discussing whether there is going to be a [different] policy,” he said. “The policy has been considered for an extended period of time, and so the policy is what the policy is.”

However, he noted that the University plans to continue to receive student input. “How we think about implementing it, I think, can still be informed,” he said.

Contributing News Writer

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN The Admission Information Center.

Eisgruber addresses free speech and censorship during book talk at Princeton Public Library

By Elizabeth Hu Contributing News Writer

University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 addressed conflicts between free speech and censorship on college campuses during a discussion at the Princeton Public Library on Monday. He was joined in conversation by Deborah Pearlstein, Director of Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Policy.

The conversation touched on many familiar themes in his latest book, “Terms of Respect.” Eisgruber will appear at several public events on campus over the next month to promote the book, including a Nov. 18 event for Yeh and New College West first-years and a Nov. 19 appearance at the art museum.

Eisgruber opened the discussion with an excerpt from the book, arguing that threats to free speech come not from college campuses and younger generations, but from “America’s severe political polarization and the world’s changed communication platforms.”

He also addressed the difference between censorship and controversy through a reference to Judge Kyle Duncan, who was invited to speak at Stanford Law School in 2023. Duncan’s talk was interrupt-

IN TOWN

ed by student protesters throughout and was eventually cut short.

“That’s real censorship,” Eisgruber said. “It made it impossible for a speaker that some people on campus wanted to hear to be heard, and that should be recognized.”

Eisgruber confronted a similar issue last semester when former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s talk at Princeton was disrupted by a walkout and a pulled fire alarm. Eisgruber released a statement afterwards denouncing “antisemitic language” used by protestors outside the talk and apologizing to Bennett. The University later barred from campus one man who had shouted down the former prime minister, although it was unable to identify the sources of antisemitic language.

“I don’t want to be trusted to be censoring speech and deciding what speech is good and what’s not. So we have this incredibly broad set of rights that, in my view, is predicated on the idea that it’s better than the alternative,” Eisgruber said.

Both during the discussion and in his book, Eisgruber cited a 2020 paper which found that 46 percent of Americans feel “less free to speak their minds than they used to.”

While he acknowledged that

self-censorship is simply “a part of adult life,” he also singled out the incentives of the internet and heightened political polarization as particular causes. He highlighted another statistic from a 2024 Johns Hopkins Poll that around 50 percent of Americans think that the opposing party is “downright evil.”

“If you know that there is a significant probability that somebody may judge you to be ‘downright evil’ when you disclose your political views to them, you have an incentive to self-censor,” Eisgruber said.

Eisgruber’s book was largely completed in January, well before the Trump administration’s most aggressive salvos against the University and its peers. During the conversation, he discussed Trump’s proposed compact to nine universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, and Dartmouth College. The compact asked these universities to agree to a set of policies regarding academic freedom, admissions, and other elements of the administration’s agenda in exchange for priority for grants and federal funding. Princeton was not directly invited to the compact, which Eisgruber condemned in a recent LinkedIn post.

“My views are exactly that the strength of American universities … depends on both academic freedom and this partnership that has existed between the government and our research universities for a period of more than 70 years now,” Eisgruber said. “Both of those two things are fundamental. We have to insist on them.”

“I didn’t think we could do this conversation in this public setting without engaging in what’s going on in the country and the administration in the world more broadly,” Pearlstein told The Daily Princetonian after the event.

Eisgruber has been particularly vocal among his peers in pushing back against the extraordinary pressures on higher education brought by the Trump administration. Still, his initial decision to stand up for higher education with his March op-ed in The Atlantic was not an easy one.

“I certainly lost a few nights of sleep before The Atlantic article came out, because I didn’t know what the reaction or the consequences would be,” Eisgruber said.

“I had to think not only about the consequences for me, but the consequences for a community that’s represented in part here and that embraces a huge number of different people on the campus.”

He ultimately decided the risks of staying silent outweighed the tactical risks of speaking up. The support Eisgruber would receive afterwards helped him make other decisions going forward.

Following the release of The Daily New York Times podcast interviewing him about his commitment to higher education, Eisgruber said he had the “unique experience” of having students chase him across the courtyard to tell him they were “really proud.”

“His willingness to speak about his views carves out space for others to do that, not just on the faculty, but among the student body,” Pearlstein said to the ‘Prince.’

In a Q&A session after the conversation, Eisgruber once again reiterated his commitment to freedom of both speech and protest.

“What really would get me worried is if [students] were choosing not to engage with those subjects through the multiple classes that we offer, if they were not writing about those subjects, and I think they’re continuing to do all those things,” Eisgruber said.

Elizabeth Hu is a News contributor from Houston, Texas. She can be reached at eh9203[at]princeton.edu.

Thousands gather at ‘No Kings’ protest in Princeton

By Elizabeth Hu & Julie Kim

Thousands of Princeton community members gathered outside the Princeton Battle Monument on Saturday as part of the National “No Kings” Day of Action to protest the Trump administration and defend democratic rights.

As part of “No Kings,” more than 2,700 demonstrations took place across all 50 states on Saturday, in addition to international protests in about 20 different countries. The demonstrations responded to many of President Donald Trump’s actions and policies, including most recently his attempt to deploy federal troops into American cities like Portland, Ore. and Chicago. The most recent rally in Princeton follows similar action from the previous June 14 “No Kings” protest.

“The Trump administration needs to know that we have them on their back foot. They are not in control. They do not represent the majority of Americans,” said speaker Ben Dziobek, a New Jersey-based climate action organizer, in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.

More than 5,000 people attended Princeton’s rally, according to Mayor Mark Freda, who spoke at the protest. The crowd skewed towards older, white demographics, with noticeably fewer young adults in attendance.

“I stand on the shoulders of the Civil Rights Movement, of the labor movement, of the environmental movement, all those people who came before, and I just want to pass

that on,” Rutgers Law School Professor Cymie Payne said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’

“I’m tenured, so I’ve got a job and I’m more stable, and I think it’s important for us to protect people who are more vulnerable.”

Still, speakers and attendees emphasized the need for youth representation.

“I think it’s really important for young people to … recognize how important it is to have free speech, free universities that are still able to attract international students … [and the] free pursuit of knowledge,” Rutgers Law School Professor Alec Walen said.

Of the younger protestors that were in attendance, many said that the rally served as a reminder of the importance of sustained activism through generations.

Crystal Tran, who recently received her master’s in Legal Studies from Seton Hall University, said that, even after Trump administration issues are resolved, “there’s going to be other issues that we’ll want to fight for, more rights that we’re going to rally for. So it’s important to see these movements to inspire us in the future, to teach our children and our children’s children to always fight for what’s right.”

Dziobek highlighted the protest’s scale as one of the largest coordinated single-day protests in U.S. history: “That says something to the rest of the world, that we will not go down quietly.”

Speakers, community members, and live musicians all gathered at the event. Key speakers, including Freda, Dziobek, and Executive Direc-

tor of Coalition for Peace Action Reverend Robert Moore, also argued for constant need for protests, the value of democracy, and the importance of resisting dictators.

“When asked what we did when tyrants rose again, let it be said we stood our ground beneath this monument and declared once more that the American Revolution is unfinished,” Dziobek said in a speech to the crowd, referring to the monument depicting General George Washington in the Battle of Princeton.

ACLU-NJ Director of Appellate Advocacy Ezra Rosenberg also encouraged attendees to

not only fight back, but also “fight forward, because times of peril are times of opportunity.”

The demonstration started at 2 p.m., with police cars and protest marshals in blue vests present. Attendees held up signs featuring messages like “No Kings In America Since 1776” and “History Has Its Eyes On Us” while passing cars honked continuously throughout to display support.

Scheduled events concluded just before 4 p.m., but protestors continued to line the streets, waving their signs and cheering as cars drove by. “Probably the adminis -

tration is not going to care about us, but maybe someone driving by might see us and they might have a change of heart,” freelance musician and attendee Emi DeLia stated in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “You never know.”

Elizabeth Hu is a News contributor from Houston, Tex. She can be reached at eh9203@princeton.edu.

Julie Kim is a News and Podcast contributor. She is from Northvale, N.J. and can be reached at julie-kim@princeton.edu.

Contributing News Writers

ELIZABETH HU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Protesters stand in front of the Princeton Battle Monument on Oct. 18.

Graduate School celebrates 125th anniversary with ‘Many Minds, Many Stripes’ conference

By Nika Schindler & Ambre Van de Velde

This past weekend, Princeton hosted Many Minds, Many Stripes, a celebration honoring graduate alumni and marking the 125th anniversary of the Graduate School.

The three-day event was held at multiple locations across campus, including Richardson Auditorium, McCosh Hall, Chancellor Green, East Pyne, and Poe Field. The festivities included a combination of alumni gatherings, academic talks and panels, networking, and research facility hours.

The event reflected on the achievements of the graduate school over the past 125 years, highlighting the 37,000 graduate degrees awarded — including 18 to current Nobel Prize Laureates.

The weekend included several speeches by University administrators about the issues affecting the Graduate School and the University’s plans for the future. They focused on how the University is expanding the Graduate School and resolving challenges from the Trump administration.

Dean of the Graduate School Rod Priestley invited the attendees to also look towards the Graduate School’s future developments, such as the University’s commitment to full funding for PhD students and enhanced support for master’s programs, nearly all of which are already fully funded.

He also discussed new programs in bioengineering, biophysics, and quantum science, and the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration.

“Each of these new programs represents significant investment by the University and research facilities, and offers graduate students the opportunity to work with world-class scholars in fields that have the potential to dramatically impact society,” Priestley said in a speech at the event. “Princeton’s graduate school is thriving.”

On the second day of the event, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 took the stage in Richardson Auditorium and shared similar sentiments as he has in the past, highlighting the continued strength of Princeton’s graduate programs.

“I get up every day with the confidence that there are extraordinary things happening on the Princeton University campus … that we have fabulous graduate students, fabulous undergraduates and fabulous faculty,” Eisgruber said. “My job is to talk to the world about why these institutions are so important to us and worth preserving.”

In a dialogue with Ann Kirschner ’78, Eisgruber emphasized the importance of free expression and diversity of thought on campus and underscored the Graduate School’s commitment to diversity of background.

When Eisgruber opened up the floor for questions, Hannah Hunter-Parker GS

Eisgruber says

By Cynthia Torres Associate News Editor

With the release of his latest book 12 years into his tenure, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 says he’s not done yet.

“Right now, I feel energetic,” Eisgruber said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “I feel enthusiastic about the community of Princeton University and the mission of Princeton University.”

Eisgruber has been president of Princeton since 2013. His current contract was renewed in 2022 and runs through the end of 2027. His tenure is one of the longest in the

’19 shared her concern that non-U.S. citizens face constant scrutiny when it comes to speaking up politically or conducting certain research.

“I can’t offer [non-citizens] some kind of magic solution,“ Eisgruber said. “I think it’s important, on the one hand, to see the risk [in speaking up], but on the other hand not to exaggerate it.”

He indicated that as of September, the rate at which students were able to get visas and successfully arrive on campus for the current academic year was nearly identical to previous years.

“This doesn’t mean that things are fine,“ he added. “I am focused on [this issue] as I go to Washington, and I am focused on it as I counsel our students. But it’s important to keep the risks in perspective as we move forward too.”

Eisgruber’s comments about international students’ speech and research are consistent with those made in his interview with the ‘Prince’ published earlier this month.

The University also held numerous panel discussions throughout the weekend, where Princeton alumni and students shared their thoughts on the state of higher education, freedom of speech on campus, and developments in AI and educational access.

Among these, Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs Amaney Jamal, Ajay Bisaria GS ’09, and Cara Abercrombie GS ’03 sat for a panel on the importance of fostering trust among

‘absolutely’

Ivy League currently, beaten only by Brown University President Christina Paxson, who has served for 13 years and will continue until at least 2028.

Every other Ivy League president has been replaced in the past two years, many of them forced out amid national firestorms. Columbia University has seen three presidents in a little over one year, and the leaders of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University resigned in quick succession following a December 2023 congressional hearing on antisemitism.

“Terms of Respect,” released Sept. 30, is Eisgruber’s first book

stakeholders and adjusting to evolving technologies in public service, while Provost Jennifer Rexford ’91 and Sarah Nagy GS ’14 held a panel on AI’s implications for academia and institutions.

During his talk in Richardson, Eisgruber similarly shared his optimism about the potential of AI to unlock new possibilities in research and education, while acknowledging the risks and challenges it poses.

“AI clearly both offers opportunities and poses risk … but I’m an AI optimist too,” he said. “There are very serious risks and threats, but let’s start with this: When you think about what AI means as something that enables us to ask questions we were never able to ask before, or to get answers to questions that we were asking previously about huge data sets — that is

an extraordinary thing for a University.” Eisgruber also expressed that students who have the quality of a Princeton graduate or undergraduate degree will be better suited to deal with the changing circumstances of AI.

“These educations provide the ability to deal with the unexpected, to think rigorously and hard about questions beyond those that we imagine right now,” Eisgruber said.

Nika Schindler is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Woodside, Calif. and can be reached at ns1295@princeton.edu.

Ambre Van de Velde is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Boston, Mass. She can be reached at av8447@princeton.edu.

to staying on until at least 2027

since 2007. In it, he argues that colleges have better free speech environments than depicted in national media, and explores his view for how university leaders should foster campus discourse.

Despite current disputes between the Trump administration and American universities, Eisgruber sees Princeton and its peers as the strongest they’ve ever been.

“I feel enthusiastic about the community of Princeton University and the mission of Princeton University,” said Eisgruber. “From my standpoint, what I want to do in this book, is say why these institutions matter so much, why

I care so deeply about them, and why, despite all the things that are hard about the job, I remain very energized, committed to doing it, happy being Princeton’s president.”

“I continue to love the place, and I continue to find the position rewarding. So that’s one where, [if] somebody sees this book as a conclusion, it is not that. It’s a statement of why I love what I do,” he said.

Eisgruber’s “Terms of Respect” included praise from Lee Bollinger, the longest-serving Ivy League president and a fellow constitutional lawyer. Bollinger was president of Columbia from

2002 to 2023. Eisgruber served as University provost for nine years before beginning his tenure.

“I started off in my job saying, look, I’m going to keep doing this as long as I remain happy and engaged and excited, and the board remains enthusiastic about having me as president,” he said. “We’re just going to take that as time goes.”

Cynthia Torres is an associate News editor and Archives contributor. She is from New Bedford, Massachusetts and typically covers University administration. She can be reached at ct3968[at]princeton.edu

Princeton honorary degree recipient Omar Yaghi wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry

By Daphne Lewis News Contributor

Omar Yaghi, who was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Princeton in May, received the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for his pioneering work in developing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).

A Jordanian-American chemist, Yaghi is the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He shares the award with chemists Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University and Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne.

Yaghi was awarded the honorary degree in recognition of his creation of

reticular chemistry, which links molecular building blocks into highly porous, stable structures such as MOFs and covalent organic frameworks (COFs).

MOFs are like sponges with tiny pores, which makes them able to generate huge internal surface areas; a single gram of an MOF can have as much internal surface area as a football field. The key innovation is that these materials can retain their porosity permanently, making them highly versatile.

The work of Yaghi, Kitagawa, and Robson has spawned over 100,000 distinct types of MOFs, with some being used for the separation of gases such as propane and propylene and others with potential for

hydrogen storage.

In recent years, Yaghi created types of MOFs that can absorb water from desert air and improve access to drinking water. Additionally, Yaghi’s work with covalent organic frameworks and zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) could revolutionize clean water production and delivery systems.

Through his undergraduate studies, Yaghi supported himself by working as a grocery store clerk and a janitor. He earned his B.S. in chemistry from State University of New York at Albany, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and completed a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard

University. He has received numerous research honors, including the Wolfe Prize in Chemistry and the Albert Einstein World Award of Science. He is also an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. During Princeton’s 2025 commencement ceremonies, Yaghi was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree in recognition of his significant achievements.

“I, along with many others, have been hoping that a Nobel for MOFs was in the works,” Mircea Dincǎ, a chemistry professor at Princeton and MOF researcher himself, wrote in an article explaining MOFs for the Department of Chemistry. The Princeton Depart-

ment of Chemistry also expressed congratulations to Yaghi and his fellow Nobel laureates in an Instagram post. “We extend sincere congratulations to Messrs. Kitagawa, Robson, and Yaghi,” the post reads. Yaghi is the second Princeton-affiliated Nobel laureate this week, after Mary Brunkow GS ’91 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Oct. 6. The upcoming announcement of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 13.

Daphne Lewis is a News and Research contributor for the ‘Prince’. She is from Washington, DC and can be reached at dl1424@princeton.edu.

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Cleveland Tower at the Graduate College.

Hum r

University unveils new Bezos School of Shipping and Warehouse Arts

By Ethan Gotthold Contributing Humor Writer

As students everywhere worry about post-graduation employment, the University turned to its donors for a new solution. The University has unveiled the Bezos School of Shipping and Warehouse Arts, funded by Jeffrey Bezos ’86, a new school of study that “will allow the liberal arts experience to provide experiential training for the jobs that our students are pursuing post-graduation,” said University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss.

The Bezos School of Shipping and Warehouse Arts will offer three majors under the A.B. degree program: Package Distribution, Employee Dissatisfaction, and Warehouse Management. Additionally, the school will offer minors in Delivery Driving and Warehouse Navigation.

In line with the school’s career readiness goal, many classes will focus on service-learning. When asked about what she was most excited for, Dr. Eve L. Menaj-Herr, a lecturer in Worker Ethics, responded, “We’re starting up a new class in employee time statistics, a field I worked in and am incredibly excited to share with students. The

students I’ve met with have been very open-minded towards experimental methods for limiting employee freedom and turning people into packaging machines.”

In addition to employee time statistics, Dr. Menaj-Herr is teaching a class on the history of union busting.

New to the University, the School of Shipping and Warehouse Arts seeks to alter the student experience outside of the classroom. Once students declare a major within the school, they will be asked to purchase a bathroom plan that limits access to the bathroom with TigerCard swipes. The cheapest of the plans includes one daily swipe anywhere on campus, with one additional swipe to be used only in residential halls. Alternatively, students can buy plans with three, five, and seven swipes a day, all of which work in any bathroom on campus.

Additionally, the Frist package system will be taken over by students in the Bezos School programs. The Bezos School pitches this as an opportunity for hands-on education, which will prepare students for the workforce. However, several students have voiced concern that their packages will take even longer to get sorted. Jane Hader ’27

summed up her concern as, “I’ve had group projects with some of the people who are gonna be in there. If Jeremy couldn’t make one slide in time, then who’s to think he’ll get off his ass and sort my package?”

Nevertheless, some students welcome the Bezos School. When asked what he was most excited for, prospective Package Distribution major John Sukup ’28 said, “I really love that the Bezos School relies on our

successful alumni to structure our education. Bezos was the only reason I chose to come to this school, and getting to study in a place paid for by his visionary mind is incredibly appealing.”

Ethan Gotthold ’29 is a contributing Humor writer. Feel free to hit him up at eg0461@princeton.edu.

New Freshman Seminar takes students to Mar-a-Lago for fall break

By Francesca Volkema Associate Humor Editor

The University’s First-Year Seminar Program provides the opportunity for first-year students to acclimate to the university experience and delve deeper into a particular topic. Many of these seminars include free trips all over the globe in order to get up close and personal with their material.

A new seminar titled “Fantastic Fascists and Where to Find Them” was introduced this fall by Professor Dick Tater. Last week, the class made their way to Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort owned by overlord Donald J. Trump, in order to further their search.

Originally, the class was scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C., to walk through the city with binoculars in hopes of spotting budding fascists through the windows of government buildings. However, with the current government shutdown, Professor Tater pivoted the enriching trip to the place in the United States with the most optimal intersection of fun and fascists.

When asked about the trip, Professor Tater stated, “It was better than you could possibly imagine.

Once I showed the resort staff pictures of my buddy Pete Hegseth and me playing pong in the Cottage backyard, they immediately curated all-inclusive arrangements for all sixteen of the students in my seminar!”

At Mar-a-Lago, the students’ activities include swimming in the pool, doubles tennis matches against Vice President Vance and his dignity, and basking in the “sun substitute” that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. installed on the island as part of his “Clean UV” campaign.

One of the students, James Little ’29, said, “I honestly joined the class because I thought it would somehow be related to Harry Potter, so I was pretty excited when I saw a witch that might have also been the head of the Department of Homeland Security.”

Over the course of the week, students were given an assignment to discover and write short profiles of as many fascists as they could in their allotted time. The students then presented their findings to the rest of the class on their last day before returning to campus. Presentations lasted over twelve hours, and many of these first-years are returning to campus with their theses already completed.

The First-Year Seminar Program plans to feature this investigative work in an exposition within the next few weeks, and they anticipate allowing Professor Tater to repeat this seminar in the future, or at least the next three years.

Francesca Volkema ’28 is an associate Humor editor who is always on the lookout for friendly neighborhood fascists. She can be reached at nr9348@princeton.edu.

JEAN SHIN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The mail lockers in Frist Campus Center keep students in anticipation for their packages.

“Turn For The B aTT er ”

By Emma Simon Senior Constructor

By Mia Mazzeo

Independent dining brought me community, not isolation

B. Jennings Guest Contributor

The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.

Being independent at Spelman Hall was one of the best decisions of my Princeton career. Yet, this week Princeton’s administrators announced they would eliminate independent status based on a study that reported that independent students felt socially isolated. But to eliminate an entire dining program that holds an abundance of historical significance and social meaning to many students enrolled — and to force them to enroll in and pay for a dining plan many of them don’t even want — is  disappointing to see as an alumnus. This policy overlooks the abundance of potential that the independent program has.

My first meal in Spelman Hall, long the home of independent students, took place during Super Bowl XXV in the winter of 1991. I was a first-year, still on campus after exams, alone and unaware of the few food options available. And I was hungry.

Leonza “Leon” Newsome

’92 and some other upperclass football players had folks over to watch the game. They had one of those enormous catering trays filled with miniature chicken parts, obligatory vegetables, and ranch dressing. Even though there was plenty of food, I silently vowed to eat no more than my share. Five pieces seemed reasonable. I wanted more, but taking more risked exposing just how famished I was. My eyes, however, devoured the entire tray. After the Giants beat the Bills, Leon handed me the rest of the tray to take home. I suspect he grasped my situation, but he framed his gesture as me helping him tidy up. That day, I made myself a promise: If I ever saw a student who seemed hungry or lonely, I’d feed them.

In 1992, my sophomore year, while my classmates were busy figuring out which eating clubs to join, I was doing room-draw calculus. Most Spelman Hall setups had four bedrooms and a bathroom, kitchen, and living room to share. A points-based weighted lottery system, similar to the one that was in effect until this past year, favored seniority and independents. Based on past housing patterns, I figured a group of four independents, including one senior, would be enough to secure a

spot. It worked.

While others were jockeying between bicker, non-bicker, and the short-lived experiment called “snicker,” I was dreaming of cooking cheesecakes and chicken fettuccine. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the Street — I might be the only independent male to have attended Houseparties all four years. I just knew the clubs there wouldn’t fully satisfy my needs.

I used to joke that I wanted neither to be interviewed by the bicker clubs nor to be stuck with people who didn’t bicker or got hosed. The truth was more personal: I’m a loner who enjoys occasional crowds but needs solitude to recharge. The Street was fun but exhausting. Spelman offered a haven for me. I enjoyed the mayhem and dancing at the Street, but 94 percent of the time, I was a homebody.

And I kept my promise: Whether it was a birthday party I threw for myself with six different desserts and indiscriminate admission; a lasagna dinner for the entire men’s track team; hosting friends with sushi, pasta-making, or French press coffee skills; trading home-cooked meals for dinner passes to the Street; joining with other Spelmanites for a block party or a potluck; or treating friends on their birthdays, I fed people. I

hosted intersession stragglers. I cooked weekly for my roommates. I fed folks until it hurt.

I made the most of that dorm, not just for myself, but for others who needed warmth and nourishment and intimacy.

So I read about the University’s decision to eliminate the independent dining option with mixed feelings. I appreciate that Princeton is no stranger to bold cultural shifts. If Spelman were being razed to make way for something more beautiful, more space efficient, or grand enough to draw a $100 million donation, I’d understand. Progress has a cost. Sentimentality about independence doesn’t pay much.

But what I find less palatable is this: In response to a study showing that independent students experienced isolation, the solution was to eliminate independence. Requiring independents to eat in the dining halls is simply compulsion disguised as good policy.

Nostalgia has its place, yet adulthood means accepting that our experiences don’t have to be replicated. The world moves on. But I will pause. For the budding chefs, the quirky palates, the ones who find peace and meaning in preparing food alone or in small gatherings, I mourn the loss of home-cooked

meals by the people who appreciate them most. I grieve latenight lasagnas, modest birthday spreads, and introverted celebrations that happened in independent kitchens, not dining halls. Spelman independents brought diversity not just in background, but in how we built community.

Campus and campus culture evolve. The Third World Center was demolished and now we have the Carl A. Fields Center. The Wawa’s location has shifted, and so has the Dinky’s, again. Back in my day, we could ignite a Duraflame log in our dorm room fireplaces after running drunk and naked through the snow. In retrospect, these changes have served us well.

But with this latest transition, I hope Princeton won’t lose sight of those who contribute quietly, the students who cook in cozy kitchens, with full plates and open doors. Let’s preserve the Independent dining option and the choice to be in community on one’s own terms.

Otis B. Jennings, Ph.D. is a member of the Class of 1994 and spent his junior and senior years in Spelman Hall. These days he is the chief data scientist of HeirShares and the founder of CARD3D, a customized 3D greeting card company.

Letter from the Editor: Why we have signed an amicus brief in Stanford Daily v. Rubio

On Wednesday, The Daily Princetonian signed an amicus brief in support of The Stanford Daily in Stanford Daily Publishing Corporation et al. v. Rubio, a lawsuit in federal court that challenges the Trump administration’s revocation of international student visas for constitutionally protected speech. An additional 54 student newspapers and newsroom leaders from universities across the country have also signed on.

It is rare for the ‘Prince’ to take such a step, and we have not done so lightly. We believe this brief, filed by the Student Press Law Center, persuasively conveys the extraordinary challenges that student newspapers across the country have faced since January — and that the brief benefits from the support of a diversity of student media organizations, including our own.

In August, The Stanford Daily, the independent student newspaper at Stanford

University, sued the Trump administration, arguing that international students — both sources and staff — had pulled back from engaging with the paper due to fears about their visa status. The Daily was joined by two anonymous international students who said they preemptively chilled their speech in response to the government’s public stance. They are being represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

As editor-in-chief, I have seen international student staff from all levels of the ‘Prince’ shy away from bylining news articles and expressing their opinions in our pages. I have dealt with dozens of requests from current and former students to anonymize, take down, or otherwise scrub already-published content. These students are, understandably, distressed, desperate, and above all, deeply fearful that their status in the United States could be revoked. The past nine months have been trying for everyone.

The brief has also been signed by 54 of our peers, including seven of the eight

Ivy League newspapers. The ‘Prince’ is fortunate — and proud — to have solid backing in addition to full independence from Princeton University.

Many other student papers, however, are not so lucky. Some cannot operate independently from the institution they cover; others may have declined to sign their names for fear of inviting government scrutiny

of their international staff members — the very issue this amicus brief and The Stanford Daily’s lawsuit seek to address.

Student newspapers are not wholly neutral actors. We are what you might call “value-laden institutions” that are committed to principles like freedom of speech and press independence. When our ability to report is threatened, we

should defend it. We will continue to fulfill our responsibility to our readership, reporting on Princeton, the Trump administration, and higher education as we would otherwise: fairly, independently, and unwaveringly.

Miriam Waldvogel is the 149th Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Princetonian.

Miriam Waldvogel Editor-in-Chief

Otis

Emily Zhang Contributing Opinion Writer

Perhaps you noticed the flurry of posters and announcements circulating campus and social media this election cycle. Even if you had an 8:30 a.m. and shuffled to class with your eyes half shut, you couldn’t miss them: flyers taped to every lamppost and flooding every Instagram story, bearing fun slogans and flashy headshots and sometimes misplaced cultural references. Amid the noise, I saw candidates pledging to “extend late meal hours” and supporters of candidates suggesting lawn parties to be made grander.

Yet class council does not — and cannot — have a say in University policy. It has never had that authority. Indeed, Undergraduate Student Government’s (USG) mission statement defines the class council’s goal as to “foster community within each class.” Ostentatious campaign promises in this election reveal a fundamental lack of understanding of what class council does. Instead, we should campaign and vote for what the role actually entails — “fostering class community.”

The role of class council, then, is to act as a provisional class government until officer elections happen in the spring semester.

Though students may associate fostering community with bonding over longer late meal hours, the reality of what class council can

The following piece represents the views of the undersigned Editorial Board members alone.

The University’s elimination of the “independent” dining option has been met with overwhelming condemnation. Campus voices have criticized the new dining policy and the opacity of its announcement. The situation begs the question: Where was the Undergraduate Student Government (USG)?

The dining edict was first announced in an email sent to only the Classes of 2027 and 2028. The policy requires that all on-campus juniors and seniors purchase a University meal plan starting in Fall 2026 and removes the “independent” status option in room draw. The University claimed that the change will “promote community in the residential dining halls” and “strengthen a sense of belonging” for independent students.

But many of those independent students disagree, citing legitimate logistical, financial, and personal concerns: restricted dining hours, increased costs, the disruption of existing independent student communities and the flexibility to cook one’s own meals, and a disregard for students who rely on independent dining to accommodate religious and medical dietary restrictions.

These are concerns that the University would have known about if they had more directly consulted students about the proposed policy change via their elected representatives: the Undergraduate Student Government.

USG should have drawn on its substantial standing in University politics

Class Council can’t fix Late Meal

do is much narrower. Promises like extended late meal are appealing because they touch on genuine student frustrations. And when frustrations run high, judgment becomes clouded and students jump on board with nearly anything, feasible or not.

But class council’s influence is limited to events and class-specific activities, like study breaks, socials, merch, and networking opportunities. Students looking for administrative change should direct their attention to the CPUC and student U-Councilors, who might have the authority and mediums to pursue it.

So why do people run for class council? Part of it is a genuine zeal for class cohesion — the opportunity to meaningfully shape the social life of yourself and those around you can be rewarding. But there are also other incentives: incumbency advantage for class officer elections in the spring, perceived social status that comes with the title of the office, or a resume line that they think sets them a cut above others.

This final point is especially consequential for first-years, who often feel pressure to distinguish themselves the second they get to campus. For many, it may feel as if accumulating commitments validates their place at Princeton. As Head Opinion Editor Frances Brogan ’27 wrote in her appeal to the freshman class, “you don’t have to cram your schedule with clubs just because it’s what you did in high school, or because it seems like everyone else is doing it.” The hyper-competitive

to stand up for student interests in this process. Instead, it acquiesced to its own disempowerment.

This is a stupendous ball-drop by USG, because the University’s intention to change dining was not a secret.

In the summer of 2024, Huron Consulting Group, an external consulting firm, released a 25-page report that recommended, among other things, a review of “independent status” and a “Campus Dining meal plan for all students who reside on campus.” The report was featured in a widely shared article in The Daily Princetonian and publicly available to the campus community, although the administration didn’t disseminate its findings.

The University has studied this issue for years; before the Huron report, a dining pilot that experimented with giving students swipes to any eating club to co-op. Before that, a task force on the University-eating club relationship. The University’s study goes back nearly 10 years to a student task force on the residential college model.

Of course, every undergraduate involved in those pre-Huron efforts has since graduated. No wonder students feel out of the loop. But as undergraduates’ designated advocates, it was USG’s responsibility to contextualize the report as part of a larger trend in University dining policy, proactively solicit student opinions, and effectively communicate them to the University. If they had done that, the University would have had two choices: Invite them to the table, or deny the existence of a conversation.

But the extent to which USG was involved with the development of the policy is unclear — and our inference is pessimistic. Vice President for University

mindset typical of Princeton firstyears can make students equate busyness with value, and the opening of offices like class council only exacerbates the pressure to appear accomplished. Ambition and enthusiasm can easily transform modest responsibilities into a stage for self-promotion, and in the end, it is those they represent — us, the first-year class — that suffer.

The result is a campaign culture that has grown increasingly extravagant. All the while, voters are being misled, expecting their votes to produce changes that the council cannot deliver.

Perhaps this campaign culture

reflects a larger problem: a general lack of knowledge about the different roles and responsibilities within the campus community. We should all do our best to remain informed about University structures, as confusing and opaque as they are. But that weight falls more heavily on the candidates who actually want to inhabit them. Candidates should articulate what class council can reasonably accomplish, and voters should understand that policy-focused pledges are far beyond the office’s purview. Recognizing the limits of class council does not diminish its value; it, in fact, allows students to focus on the

real efforts of the council to promote connection across the class.

So the next time you see a poster promising sweeping reforms, remember that class council is about spirit and community — not policy. Voters and candidates alike would do well to align their expectations with reality, ensuring that the office fulfills its true purpose: creating experiences that bring classmates together.

Emily Zhang ’29 is a contributing Opinion writer for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and can be reached at ez5618[at]princeton.edu.

Services Chad Klaus cited “conversations with the Student Life Committee of the Undergraduate Student Government” as one example of student input the University collected. That is where transparent traces of USG involvement end.

Nor is it clear why USG was so uninvolved. Was it willful ignorance? USG should be tuned in and responsive to situations like these, especially when a population of students — here, independents — need its advocacy. It’s hard to imagine why a decision which so profoundly reshapes the contours of student life at Princeton would ever fly past USG. Does the University not see USG as suitable representatives of the undergraduate population? That reflects poorly on USG and the University both. If the student government can be excluded from the deliberations it was designed to help influence, then the authority of

the strongest channel for student voices is fundamentally compromised. In response, USG must demand a seat at the table.

Had they been in the room, maybe the rollout would not have been so haphazard. The University should have issued a comprehensive statement to the entire campus community, not just the two class years most directly affected, and stakeholders like eating clubs and co-ops should have received advance notice. The two info sessions should not have been scheduled during both midterms — a difficult time for nearly all students — and the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, making it exceptionally difficult for observant Jewish students.

If we are wrong, and USG was in the room, the situation is even worse: Our elected representatives protected the University’s ability to make secret decisions

behind closed doors over their constituents’ knowledge of and input on decisions that affect us.

USG should always demand answers. When the University fails to give it a straight answer, it should push back. But to do any of that, they must have to be at the table in the first place. If USG isn’t at the table on student life decisions as big as this one, they are no longer effective representatives of the student body.

149th Editorial Board

Isaac Barsoum ’28

Raf Basas ’28

Frances Brogan ’27

Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26

Preston Ferraiuolo ’26

Anna Ferris ’26

Ava Johnson ’27

Christofer Robles ’26, Chair Bryan Zhang ’26

CALVIN GROVER

CALVIN K. GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Robertson 100, which often hosts USG meetings.

Reactions: What first-years care (and don’t care) about at Princeton

Opinion Staff

The ‘Prince’ recently published its Class of 2029 Frosh Survey, featuring data on everything from the incoming class’s familiarity with AI models to its knowledge of prominent Princeton alumni to its past sexual experiences. Here, five of our Opinion editors identify and tackle key takeaways about Princeton’s newest class.

Trump can’t scare us away from the life of the mind

University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has been inundated with praise for his handling of the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education. While he’s been an admirable defender of the University, Princeton’s strongest insulation against the federal assault on higher education isn’t Eisgruber’s rhetorical prowess. Rather, it’s the irrepressible and tenacious intellectual curiosity of incoming classes — including the substantial portion who want to devote their lives to the Ivory Tower.

According to the ‘Prince’ Class of 2029 Frosh Survey, 40.6 percent of the new class is considering pursuing$rcentage than for any other field. This is consistent with data from past Frosh Surveys — 42.1 percent of the Class of 2028 reported an interest in academia, as did 40.6 percent of the Class of 2027. This suggests that political hostility towards higher education isn’t discouraging each successive batch of Princeton students from at least contemplating the kinds of jobs the government is trying to eradicate.

The Trump administration wants to muzzle intellectuals and squelch academic research because nothing threatens an aspiring autocrat more than the flourishing of free thought and ideological diversity. A university is a petri dish for potential challengers and dissidents, nurturing young people who could reshape this country according to radically different values than those Trump and his lackeys seek to impose.

The Frosh Survey shows that new Princetonians aren’t cowed by the current political climate. Their aspirations demonstrate that the ideal of the university is conceptually durable. After all, a lot of smart kids still believe so strongly in the value of academia that they plan to make it their vocation.

Head Opinion Editor Frances Brogan is a junior in the History department from Lancaster, Pa. She can be reached at frances.brogan[at] princeton.edu.

On progressive activism, Princetonians remain agnostic

While a culture of political apathy has long been predominant at Princeton, this year’s Frosh Survey serves as a stark

reminder that activists are not drawn to Princeton. Nearly 43 percent and 63 percent of the Class of 2029, respectively, responded that they had “not enough information” about the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” nor the University’s response to it, to form a coherent opinion about the events.

This is strange; although Princeton did not receive the same kind of federal lambasting nor media coverage as peer schools like Columbia or Harvard, Princeton’s encampment was covered rather robustly by national and local media outlets.

Of course, there are many reasons why students could have opted out of sharing their views on the topic. And the student body’s degree of commitment to “advancing social justice” — which a majority of first-years believed was a prominent community sentiment — isn’t something that can be measured by new students’ views on the encampment alone.

But the fact that nearly 40 percent of the new admits have positive opinions about President Eisgruber’s response to federal uncertainty suggests the Class of 2029 is far from uninformed about Princeton’s role in national politics. Rather, apathy about the encampment signals comfort with mainstream political narratives and aversion to more “radical” political discourse — a sign of the student body’s enduring political timidity.

The apathy surrounding the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, then, is less an anomaly than a reflection of Princeton’s continued cultural distance from progressive activism.

Siyeon Lee is a junior associate Opinion editor from Seoul, South Korea majoring in History.  She can be reached at siyeonlee[at]princeton.edu.

Class of 2029, take a stance on SCOTUS

Princeton’s reputation today is staked in the institution’s emergence as a defender of speech and intellectual freedom. This was not lost in the Class of 2029. According to the Frosh Survey, more than 85 percent at least somewhat agreed that Princeton is “an intellectual haven where free speech and dissent are welcomed.”

To value Princeton as a paradise for productive disagreement is to value the foundations of discourse, which, in an ideal world, Supreme Court justices uphold. But just under 60 percent of frosh report having “not enough information” to form an opinion of Princeton alumnus Justice Samuel Alito ’72 — the author of the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — or alumna Justice Elena Kagan ’81. Thirty-one percent cited no opinion on Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’76, who is now the namesake of the Admission Information Center and U-Store.

Students coming of age in a

time of political turmoil appear woefully uninformed about the Supreme Court, the very institution precipitating much of this unrest. While it might seem that all we do is talk politics, new Princeton students seem to struggle to think critically about the individual actors whose decisions impact all of our lives.

We must confront political power not as a single, faceless force but as the assemblage of individuals — like Alito, Kagan, and Sotomayor — who we all, as fellow individuals, have the capacity and right to criticize. It’s not our job as students to know everything, but it’s our privilege and responsibility to have an opinion, and to take full advantage of Princeton’s status as a free-speech “haven” where we can develop, test, express, and maybe even change our opinions.

Lily Halbert-Alexander is a sophomore assistant Opinion editor from San Francisco, Calif., majoring in English. She has decidedly enough information to form an opinion on Samuel Alito. She can be reached at lh1157[at]princeton.edu.

The Class of 2029’s high school AI use shows where teaching priorities should lie Members of the Class of 2029 are the first at Princeton to have had access to generative AI for the majority of their high school careers. So it’s particularly intriguing that, according to the Frosh Survey, 48.6 percent of first-years reported having used AI models for reading and writing assistance, but only 44.8 percent for STEM work.

This surprised me. At Princeton, it’s somewhat normalized to turn to AI for help with STEM, but it is still generally frowned upon in the humanities, with

many courses — and some entire departments — barring the technology entirely.

But if younger Princetonians are already accustomed to using AI for reading and writing, prohibition of the technology alone is no longer enough. Introductory humanities courses must find proactive ways to ensure students learn critical thinking skills they may not have practiced in high school to the same extent as older Princetonians.

Intro STEM classes like COS 217: Introduction to Programming Systems have begun testing student understanding through quizzes on programming assignments, as opposed to weighing assignments themselves highly. Professors should consider implementing analogous solutions in the humanities, perhaps by replacing weekly reading responses that are typically completed outside of class with in-class writing exercises or structured class discussions.

In first-year Writing Seminars, this is especially important to consider. Although longer research papers are vital, the Writing Program should use in-class writing exercises to further encourage the development of original ideas, a central theme of the course. When students arrive at Princeton having already used AI extensively and across disciplines, we need to center critical thinking more than ever.

Shane McCauley is an assistant Opinion editor from Boston. He can be reached at sm8000[at]princeton. edu.

Who gets to drink at Princeton?

Each year, the ‘Prince’ Frosh Survey confirms at Princeton what researchers have known

since at least 2015: Rich people drink more.

In the United Kingdom, a study found that approximately 70 percent of teens who were from the “least deprived” economic background drank, compared with around 50 percent from the “most deprived” group. And at Princeton, students who do not receive financial aid are twice as likely to have had a drink before matriculating than students who receive full financial aid.

I don’t point this out to encourage more students who receive full aid to drink — and nor, for that matter, for non-aid receiving students to stop drinking. But this statistic is indicative of a larger problem within a slice of Princeton social life, and the University more generally. Wealthier frosh are also more likely to be legacy students and are more likely to say they want to join an eating club, a central part of upperclass social life.

In aggregate, this data suggests that students who have more money expect to feel more at home here.

While drinking and joining eating clubs are only a part of the vibrant social life that students can find at Princeton, and while it’s impossible to understand exactly why first-years answered the survey the way they did, statistics like these highlight socioeconomic inequalities that are still incredibly prevalent on our campus. Princeton has made headway in democratizing its academic and preprofessional offerings; it’s time for social options to follow suit.

Charlie Yale is an assistant Opinion editor from Omaha, Neb., who enjoys a (non-alcoholic) drink. He can be reached at cyale[at]princeton.edu.

GUANYI CAO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Nassua Hall in the fall.

DINING

Continued from page 1

clubs and choose a cheaper dining hall meal plan, further stratifying the campus into haves and have-nots.

Finally, and perhaps most worrisome, we believe that this policy gives the University a beachhead to incrementally weaken the eating club system over time. This concern is well-founded; over a century ago, then-University President Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, sought to restrict all undergraduate lodging and dining to “quads,” a precursor to the modern residential college system. This plan would have crippled the eating clubs, which created enough alumni backlash for the administration to relent and leave the upperclassmen experience as it was.

Despite this setback, the University has made incre -

mental steps towards Wilson’s original vision, recently expanding the number of residential colleges to eight and creating “four-year residential colleges” to house all upperclassmen. At the GICC, we worry that this pattern of steady escalation will continue; the University may require a $900 plan this year, but it could turn into a $2,000 plan or a $5,000 plan, eroding eating clubs and co-ops.

In meetings with University leadership, the GICC has proposed sensible alternatives. The University could simply make this second meal plan optional, and let students decide for themselves if they need it. Alternatively, if the University has conviction that these dining hall meals are important to undergraduate life, then it should continue giving all upperclassmen two free meals at the dining halls. It already proposes to pay for a large portion of these meals

via financial aid, so the incremental cost of paying for the remaining students seems small by comparison. If this policy moves forward as currently written, then the University could artificially reduce demand for eating clubs such that only a fraction of them are financially viable. In this nightmare scenario, only a select few students would be part of the remaining clubs. This would make Princeton look more like Harvard or Yale, whose social scene is defined by a handful of elitist finals clubs and exclusionary secret societies.

And why should Princeton emulate the second-best school of Cambridge, Massachusetts? There’s something magical about our existing formula of having so many student-run dining options on campus that serve a substantial portion of campus. In each eating club and coop, members slowly adapt the

organization to their needs, and the end result is that they become better suited for their constituents than a large, centrally administered dining hall ever could. This cultivates a sense of ownership and a strong feeling of community that their members cannot find elsewhere on campus. Evidence backs this up: In the 2024 dining survey by the Huron Consulting Group, eating club and co-op members reported a higher satisfaction than any other cut of the surveyed population.

For anyone who has been part of an eating club or co-op, it’s obvious why these numbers look the way that they do. Personally, my eating club was the most consequential part of my Princeton experience, and those two-and-a-half years resulted in lifelong friendships that I cannot imagine my adult life without. I know that countless other alumni feel the same way about their

own clubs, and by Huron’s own report, this continues to be true for current students. So if it ain’t broke, then why is the University trying to fix it? We urge the University to stop imposing its vision of an idealized dining experience on students who are already happy. If it keeps going down this path, then its Harvardlike centralization of dining will asphyxiate these great institutions, and we will quickly find that its one-size-fits-all solution is actually one-sizefits-no-one.

If you are an alum, we hope you join us in letting the administration know your displeasure.

Rodrigo C.L. Menezes is a member of the Class of 2013, the chairman of Charter Club’s Board of Governors, and the current vicechair of the Graduate Interclub Council. He can be reached at rclmenezes[at]gmail.com.

Reactions: What would you change about first-year orientation?

Opinion Staff

Five of our newest writers take on what they perceive as the biggest problems with first year orientation and propose potential reforms for the years to come.

OA should become mandatory ‘small-group experience’

In conversations with first-year students, a recurring theme has been a tangible dissatisfaction with Community Action (CA) and Dialogue and Difference in Action (DDA) Orientation small-group experiences. The programs largely failed to make good on their promises of cultivating relationships and opportunities for “service” and “civic engagement.” Only Outdoor Action (OA), it seemed, held true to the goals it set out for itself.

Next year, Princeton should offer OA as the singular small-group experience, featuring both an on-campus and offcampus option.

During overnight outings, the aspect of ‘forced proximity’ within small groups, which is so integral to OA and yet so absent in other groups, makes the quality of relationships built during OA excursions all the more meaningful. Being stuck with a group for four days with little to no privacy and a constant uphill struggle (quite literally) compels you to embrace the awkward, and, more importantly, discourages social withdrawal.

On the contrary, in CA groups like mine, events only ran until 6 p.m., after which time we drifted our separate ways. For on-campus groups in particular, with the convenience of retreating to dorms ever-present, there is hardly time for building deep-seated connections.

Finally, the divorce from technology and campus that OA provides, which offers students a reset and relief, is critical. In the academic burrow of Princeton, where screens are inescapable and we are constantly stormed by preprofessional stressors, we should all experience a time away from our devices before that is all we know for the next

four years.

The value that OA offers is unmatched by CA and DDA. It’s high time that Princeton made it mandatory.

Sabir Seth ’29 is a prospective Computer Science major from San Ramon, Calif. He can be reached at ss6976[at]princeton.edu.

CA fails to live up to its ideals

Upon learning this summer that I would be participating in Community Action (CA), I was ecstatic. It felt like the perfect extension of the volunteering that marked my time in high school. My group’s theme, Refugee Services, seemed especially pertinent amid the rising inflammatory political discourse about immigrants during the second Trump Administration.

But CA was hardly what it advertised itself to be.

My group was dropped off at a lowincome housing site about 10 minutes from Central Park. We spent the next hour with a local food justice organization packing bags with pantry goods, knocking on doors, and offering meals to whomever answered. However, by the end, we had only served seven families in a complex with roughly 50 apartments.

We spent the next three days touring the Museum of the City of New York, doing team building activities at the St. John Paul II Youth Retreat Center in Newark, and grabbing boba and meals. Beyond our first day, the trip included no acts of service whatsoever. What had been advertised as an immersive experience spent fulfilling Princeton’s informal motto was essentially a fourday retreat with community service as a feature, rather than the focus.

I’m tremendously grateful for the friendships I made across those four days. But my CA experience was nevertheless disappointing.

CA must be redesigned and rethought. Service activities, with ample opportunities for reflection, should be incorporated every day of the trip. Partnerships with community organizations should be deepened, and opportunities for students to continue their work throughout the school year should be provided.

This is a university whose guiding vision is service in the world. If all we do during a service-centered trip feels performative and minimal, does that vision still ring true?

Ravin Bhatia ’29 is an Opinion writer from Brookline, Mass. He is a prospective SPIA major on a pre-law track, and can be reached at rb8448[at]princeton.edu.

If everything is “mandatory,” nothing is mandatory

First-year Orientation lasts for what feels like a century. The most frustrating part of Orientation is the meaningless busywork that underpins the entire experience.

There are, of course, main events of the Orientation experience: the long meetings with zee groups, the overwhelming entire-class social events like the ice cream social, and the Orientation trips that monopolize most students’ mental bandwidths. But there are also monotonous information sessions devoid of any true meaning.

Programming like the pre-read discussion, the alcohol training, and the academic honesty sessions are forgotten as soon as they are completed — and they often go uncompleted. How many of your friends read Dean Gordin’s book this summer? Orientation events, which are all “mandatory,” fall along a spectrum of “mandatory-ness.”

The University should take this to heart: When so many students already skip events, adding new ones and calling them “mandatory” will only make old events feel less so. And the mass of irrelevant events punishes those who follow the rules and attend them while rewarding those who are choosier about what to participate in.

Next year, the University should be more intentional about what they require first-years to complete. Slim down the number of events, and actually enforce attendance with punishments for students who don’t complete the programming. The University needs to recognize that some events, which they believe are in the best interest for the new students, are disliked and avoided, and without any external pressure, just won’t be completed. If Princeton

believes so strongly in their Orientation program, they need to be willing to back it up.

Ian Kuo ’29 is an Opinion writer from Davidson, N. C. He is a prospective History major and can be reached at ik5195[at] princeton.edu.

Not every talk needs to be a full hour Sitting through hours of talks during first-year Orientation, I couldn’t help but notice lots of people around me dozing off or scrolling on their phones. Over our 10-day Orientation, we sat through several hour-long lectures on topics ranging from academic success to scholarly integrity. While these topics may be important, the sessions often regurgitated information already covered in training course modules or could have been effectively conveyed in less than 30 minutes.

There are two ways we can resolve this problem. First, the University could guarantee that all talks and lectures are less than an hour long. A three-hour lecture on “How to Thrive at Princeton” would be more effective if it was slashed to one hour and didn’t repeat information included in summer programming. If talks weren’t so repetitive and obscenely long, students might actually pay attention and retain information. Cutting unnecessary programming would also give first-years more time to explore campus and meet new people outside of University-sponsored events.

Orientation programming should also adopt dynamic, multimedia presentation styles to keep students engaged. A high point of Orientation was the Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education play, which navigated a serious topic in an interesting, engaging, and entertaining way. During the play, there wasn’t a phone in sight. The crowd demonstrated their engagement through laughter and gasps as the plot developed. While it’s not feasible to turn all Orientation programming into theatrical productions, finding creative ways to keep students engaged beyond simple lectures would surely result in a better Orientation experience.

Noah Gezahegn ’29 is an Opinion writer from Roxbury, N.J.. He is a prospective Neuroscience major and can be reached at ng5372[at]princeton.edu.

Panic! At the course signups Princeton should reduce the time spent on scheduled icebreakers and CORE events, prioritizing  helping students adjust to the school curriculum and figure out their course schedules. During the frantic course registration process, my friend lamented, “Why didn’t we do this sooner instead of randomly going out to the woods?” Several of my friends stayed up all night just so they could have the perfect schedule arranged at 9 a.m. on Aug. 26. Although initially confident, I was shaken to learn that most math courses required a diagnostic test which was worth a non-negligible percentage of the final grade. As someone who had not taken calculus since junior year, I feverishly studied for six hours. When I attempted to go to the McGraw Center for help, I was told that tutoring wasn’t available yet. In an alarming change of pace, I went from hiking on CA to cramming, blindly navigating a complicated departmental bureaucracy.

If Princeton is truly committed to helping students adjust, they should implement more sessions that train students on how various courses actually work and host review sessions for classes that begin with diagnostic tests. Although Orientation already has academically-focused lectures, they are insufficiently detailed, talking in sweeping and unhelpful generalities. If Princeton instead dedicated entire days to specific departmental orientation, potentially even with professors hosting “mock classes” and sharing — and raising awareness about existing — preparatory problem sets, first-years would feel far more prepared to start classes. Social navigation is important, but Orientation programming must be adjusted to ensure that academics don’t get neglected.

Audrey Tan ’29 is an Opinion writer from Pullman, Wash. She is a prospective Economics major on a pre-law track and can be reached at at4887[at]princeton.edu.

vol. cxlviii

editor-in-chief Miriam Waldvogel ’26

business manager Jessica Funk ’26

149TH MANAGING BOARD

upper management

Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26

Isabella Dail ’26

director of outreach

Oliva Sanchez ’26

Accessibility

Bridget O’Neill ’26

Bryan Zhang ’26

creative director Malia Gaviola ’26

strategic initiative directors

Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko ’26

editors at large Research Andrew Bosworth ’26

Education Hayk Yengibaryan ’26

Sections listed in alphabetical order.

head archives editor

Lianne Chapin ’26

associate archives editor

Jillian Ascher ’28

head audience editors

Paige Walworth ’26

Justus Wilhoit ’26 (Reels)

associate audience editors

Catherine Ross ’27

associate reels editors

Natalia Diaz ’27

Loreta Quarmine ’27

head cartoon editor Eliana Du ’28

head copy editors

Lindsay Pagaduan ’26

James Thompson ’27

associate head copy editors

Coco Xu ’27

Song Ting Tang ’27

head data editors

Vincent Etherton ’26

Alexa Wingate ’27

head features editors

Raphaela Gold ’26

Coco Gong ’27

associate features editors

Mira Eashwaran ’26

Valentina Moreno ’26

head humor editor

Sophia Varughese ’26

associate humor editors

Tarun Iyengar ’28

Francesca Volkema ’28

head news editors

Victoria Davies ’27

Hayk Yengibaryan ’26

associate news editors

Thomas Catalan0 ’27

Devon Rudolph ’28

Cynthia Torres ’27

head newsletter editor

Caleb Bello ’27

Chair

Princeton should provide universal access to ChatGPT Plus

associate newsletter editor Corbin Mortimer ’27

head opinion editor Frances Brogan ’27

community opinion editor Jerry Zhu ’27

associate opinion editors Preston Ferraiuolo ’26

Siyeon Lee ’27

head photo editors Calvin Grover ’27 Jean Shin ’26

head podcast editor Maya Mukherjee ’27

associate podcast editors Twyla Colburn ’27 Sheryl Xue ’28

head print design editors Kriste An ’28 Juan Fajardo ’28

head prospect editors Mackenzie Hollingsworth ’26 Gavin McLoughlin ’28

associate prospect editors Natalia Diaz ’27

Ysabella Olsen ’28

head puzzles editors Wade Bednar ’26 Luke Schreiber ’28

associate puzzle editors Jasin Cekinmez ’27

Lindsay McBride ’27

Peter Stover ’28

head sports editors Alex Beverton-Smith ’27

Harrison Blank ’26

associate sports editors Lily Pampolina ’27

Doug Schwarz ’28

head web design and development editors Cole Ramer ’28

149TH EDITORIAL BOARD

Christofer Robles ’26

Members Isaac Barsoum ’28

Frances Brogan ’27

Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26

Preston Ferraiuolo ’26

Anna Ferris ’26

Ava Johnson ’27

Raf Basas ’28

Bryan Zhang ’26

149TH BUSINESS BOARD

assistant business manager

Alistair Wright ’27

directors Andrew He ’26

Tejas Iyer ’26

William Li ’27

Stephanie Ma ’27

Jordan Manela ’26

James Swinehart ’27

Adelle Xiao ’27

Chloe Zhu ’27

business manager emeritus Aidan Phillips ’25

149TH TECHNOLOGY BOARD

chief technology officer

Yacoub Kahkajian ’26

software engineers

Abu Ahmed ’28

Sadat Ahmed ’28

Nicole Deng ’28

Ziya Momin ’28

Kyaw Naing ’28

Minhaz Rajib ’28

Luke Sanborn ’28

Stephanie Sugandi ’27

THIS PRINT ISSUE WAS DESIGNED BY

Juan Fajardo ’28

Kriste An ’28

Marley Hartnett-Cody ’28

Chengyu Fu ’28

Jose Santacruz ’28

Cassidy Critteron ’28 AND COPIED BY

Sarah

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

president Thomas E. Weber ’89

vice president David Baumgarten ’06

secretary Chanakya A. Sethi ’07

treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90

assistant treasurer

Kavita Saini ’09

trustees Francesca Barber

Kathleen Crown

Suzanne Dance ’96

Gabriel Debenedetti ’12

Stephen Fuzesi ’00

Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05

Michael Grabell ’03

Danielle Ivory ’05 Rick Klein ’98

James T. MacGregor ’66

Rohit Narayanan ’24

Marie-Rose Sheinerman ’23

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Abigail Williams ’14

Tyler Woulfe ’07

trustees ex officio

Miriam Waldvogel ’26

Jessica Funk ’26

AI is everywhere at Princeton. The preread for the Class of 2028 focused on the societal and technological impacts of AI. The University led efforts to establish a center for AI research in collaboration with state legislators. Around 80% of respondents to the Class of 2025 Senior Survey reported using generative AI on an assignment when allowed. And, as University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said himself, “Princeton’s strategic framework recognizes the promise and societal implications of artificial intelligence — as well as the University’s unique capacity to meet these challenges.”

Like many of my peers, I’m a ChatGPT user. Personally, I pay for the Plus version because it allows me to generate unlimited conceptual examples for complicated topics in my STEM classes, and provides unlimited data analysis inquiries. But not everyone is willing to shell out the $20 a month for an upgraded AI bot. With generative AI becoming an increasingly integral tool in work and research, Princeton should provide students free access to ChatGPT Plus.

Precedent for guaranteeing students access to more sophisticated generative AI models exists at our peer institutions. At Duke University, all undergraduate students have access to the latest ChatGPT models through a private institutional contract with OpenAI. They also have access to “DukeGPT,” an AI model developed specifically by the university for institutional use. Such steps eliminate financial barriers to the use of the latest models and equip their students with

the fruits of the hard work of AI research and development. Furthermore, the conditions of the contract with OpenAI allow Duke to protect its students’ privacy by stipulating that no students’ data can be stored and used to train new models. Other universities have also implemented similar initiatives that provide broad access to ChatGPT and university-developed AI tools.

Currently, students who have the ability to pay for more sophisticated models like ChatGPT Plus are at an advantage. Duke’s model makes sense because it levels the playing field by eliminating the current cost barrier for access to the latest, most advanced and accurate models like GPT-5. These models are faster and are better at analyzing data; we shouldn’t deprive students of the chance to access the latest tools — which we are leading efforts in developing — because they cannot pay for them. Without equal access to advanced models of ChatGPT, students are not on a level playing field. Princeton rightfully bans outside tutoring because it provides an unfair advantage to students who have the means to afford it. This situation is not so different. We must accept that students are using generative AI whether we like it or not, and that the best response is to level the playing field, ensuring that the cost of better models doesn’t entrench class-based disparities in learning outcomes. If the University acknowledges the near-universal usage of ChatGPT among students, it can become an equitable learning tool, better acquainting all of us with the potential for advanced AI to enhance our learning.

In a widely cited article in the New Yorker, Princeton history professor D. Graham Burnett described the surprising results of an assignment he developed in which students were encouraged to have a conversation with ChatGPT about the history of attention. His article

reveals that ChatGPT has value across diverse academic disciplines: When implemented in engaging and sophisticated ways, ChatGPT is capable of much more than simply generating p-set answers or summarizing course readings. In fact, the very act of interrogating ChatGPT changes the way we think about machine and human learning, and that’s a process in which students should be included.

The University’s library system pays for a vast network of online resources. If we can fund access to basically every academic journal ever, we can certainly afford to pay for ChatGPT Plus. Given the centrality of research to the Princeton undergraduate experience, these tools should be available to the entire student body in ways that protect their data privacy and fuel the production of even higher-quality research.

Very few would deny that these tools do have potential for misuse. But paying for a more advanced ChatGPT model is unlikely to give rise to new bad habits: If a student is excited by getting access to ChatGPT Plus, they were probably already using ChatGPT anyway. So far, Princeton’s professors have done an admirable job at designing assessments and assignments to avoid generative AI abuse.

AI, whether generative or not, is the future: the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for the development of AlphaFold, an AI-powered model that predicts protein folding and structure. To be able to contribute meaningfully throughout our lives in whichever field we choose, Princeton students need the chance to amply experience AI and figure out how it can sharpen our abilities as learners. To do that, we all need the opportunity to engage with the most sophisticated models.

Jorge Reyes is an Opinion columnist for the ‘Prince.’ He intends to major in Chemistry and is from Louisville (Loo-uh-vul), Ky.

Jorge Reyes

Li ’28

Like Austen’s Emma, Jeff Nunokawa can’t resist

Continued from page 1

present day.

“I thought it was a character at first,” said Ev Wellmon ’28, having taken 19th Century Fiction in the fall of her freshman year. “Sure, it may be a character, but it is how he is in one-on-one interactions, and as a lecturer that’s just how he expresses himself.”

Nunokawa is as eccentric and unbound in the classroom as he is in his ENG345 emails, which read, “Emma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!” Or, more probingly, “Introductory --how the nineteenth century novel haunts my dreams and yours.” Then, he signs off in an emphatic, “SEE YOU SOON KIDS! CAN’T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!”

“I have never had a professor that made me want to be a professor before,” said Tyler Wilson ’26, currently enrolled in 19th Century Fiction and formerly enrolled in Nunokawa’s spring course, The Essay. “But to watch the way he goes about interacting with students and engaging with students. I’m like, damn, that could be me.”

The physicality and seeming spontaneity of Nunokawa’s teachings, all while holding a Red Bull and sweating through his attire, the Nunokawa that shows up to lecture, devoted to “Emma,” is the same Nunokawa who shows up to a one-on-one conversation, fascinated by the idiosyncrasies of the person before him.

Nunokawa isn’t married and doesn’t have kids, but “I have this huge surrogate family,” he tells me. The connections he maintains with friends and former students are no less important to him than the nuclear American household.

“Friendships are like marriages. They’re like any family. They cannot be taken for granted. They have to be nourished. They have to be tended to, they have to be kept up.”

“I feel fully human when I’m talking to him,” said Professor Gage McWeeny GS ’03 of Williams College, a former student turned close friend and colleague of Nunokawa’s for over thirty years. Nunokawa had been his dissertation advisor upon being admitted into Princeton’s PhD program, and Professor McWeeny was even a preceptor for 19th Century Fiction. The two worked closely together, developing a relationship entangled in the personal and the intellectual. “I feel fully human, that I have to bring my full humanity to that conversation.”

How often does one get to feel fully human in a conversation, down to the marrow? It’s a demanding, frightening state, but not for Nunokawa. He is fully there, fully engaged, for one person and the next, for a thirty-yearlong friend and a first-year undergraduate. His interlocutor gets all of him in a conversation and, almost instinctively, the interlocutor is compelled to bring all of themselves in return.

“When you’re talking with Jeff, it is the only thing that matters,” said Professor McWeeny over a phone call. “That comes not through any overt proselytizing by Jeff or something. It’s just the

intensity of his engagement that then produces an intensity of engagement in you.”

What Nunokawa evokes in his students and seeds in them through his lectures is not often realized in the semester they’re enrolled in his course. He knows, realistically, that every student doesn’t diligently complete the assigned readings, but what he imparts about Victorian literature is not easily forgotten. Its brilliance can resound ten years post-grad, when a former student picks up Vanity Fair for a second reading and reaches out to Nunokawa expressing their amazement.

For others, the touch of Nunokawa’s commanded language, his crafted anecdotes and eccentricities, is felt immediately and overwhelmingly.

Clara McWeeny ’25, Professor McWeeny’s daughter, had Nunokawa as a figure in her life since she was born, but for a long while only perceived him in the abstract sense through her father’s stories. “When you’re growing up, you have all these role models, and you don’t really think of your parents as having role models. But I remember from a very young age, I was like, oh yeah, okay, Jeff is my dad’s role model,” she said.

In McWeeny’s junior spring, she enrolled in 19th Century Fiction and had Nunokawa as a lecturer and preceptor. McWeeny distinctly recalled the last lecture of the semester, on “Middlemarch.” “I sat in his lecture, and just openly wept and during his final lecture, and I was kind of embarrassed about it, and then I looked around, and everyone else was kind of weeping too,” she said. The finality of the class wasn’t what brought McWeeny to tears, she clarified, but rather the way Nunokawa taught. Like a gravitational pull, there’s an irresistible sense that one should lean in and listen a little closer when he’s speaking.

Even after graduation, Nunokawa’s moving conversations and knowledge still seep into Princetonians’ lives. Isabelle Clayton ’25 was one member in an intimate gathering of post-grad English majors held at Nunokawa’s New York apartment this past September, where they read aloud the ending of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Clayton was struck by the collectivity of this moment. “He brought us back to our literary roots,” she said.

Professors often pass through students’ lives like trains in a station, but in the momentary time they dwell, an impression is made — and Nunokawa leaves a lasting one. He nurtures his friendships — his quasi-marriages — intellectually and emotionally, with provoking discussions and utter attention, imparting his raw perceptions and “equipment for living,” as Professor McWeeny called it.

Nunokawa isn’t a character. He’s the director. His performed lectures are entirely thought out. The notes scattered on his lecture podium are archeological, reaching as far back as 1982. Arguments he’s refined for several decades and continues to renovate as new thoughts occur, rendering his writings comprehensible to the new generation.

“It’s a lot like a sermon,” Nuno-

kawa explained, not in the sense of preaching a doctrinal sermon, but rather a secular scripture entangled in and surpassing his own ego. “I’m not trying to compare myself to a priest or man of God, and I don’t believe what I’m doing is the ‘God’ term, but I take it really seriously.”

Nunokawa takes hours to prepare and renovate each lecture.

On the days he teaches, he rarely schedules anything between the hours he rises at 7 a.m. until he’s mounted the McCosh 28 stage at 2:25 p.m. “I am very concerned that what I’m saying works, makes sense like what I’m saying actually is cogent, clear and resonant,” he explained.

All this conscientiousness surmounts to the ultimate moment when he bounds into the lecture

hall and breathlessly gazes at the faces of his students, riddled with curiosity. Nunokawa still succumbs to the tendency of walking through his lecture hall and asking, “Was that clear? Was that clear?” Which, he prefaces, is just an indirect way of asking, “Do you love me? Do you love me?”

For Nunokawa, to be understood is to be loved, which may explain how he manages to maintain such long-lasting connections with his students. He delves beyond the superficial familiarity a professor is meant to have with their undergraduates. He needs to present himself fully so that he can truly be seen by others and, in turn, he is driven to see others.

“I want to be loved and also admired. I want to teach them something as well as have them like

me,” he said. “It’s got to be both.” Even as generations of students pass, as his notes pile, as his office brims with more books, he doesn’t believe 19th Century Fiction will ever near perfection, and that’s precisely what makes him an “exquisitely lucky man.” He will never stop reconsidering, rewriting, because as short as one Princeton semester is, as life is, Nunokawa’s art is long.

Ever the English professor, Nunokawa offered me a morsel of Chaucer to go with the cashews. “The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”

Lola Horowitz is a contributing Features writer for the ‘Prince.’

COURTESY OF JEFF NUNOKAWA

Professor Jeff Nunokawa at a villa in Milan.

JEFF

the PROSPECT. ARTS & CULTURE

Is Princeton Shopping Center’s Wonder Pho worth the walk?

By Caroline Naughton | Prospect Contributor

There are few things that will motivate a college student to walk nearly an hour across town, but the promise of warm broth, crispy rolls, and juicy meat? That might just do the trick.

Wonder Pho is a newly opened restaurant in the Princeton Shopping Center that serves its namesake dish alongside other Vietnamese offerings like banh mi and banh xeo, a crispy crepe with various fillings. The restaurant was founded by four cousins, who sought to reimagine Vietnamese comfort food with a modern twist. With midterms coming up and papers to be finished, I was in serious need of a tasty meal, or at least a change of scenery. Since Wonder Pho recently had its soft opening, I braved the journey there last Tuesday to see what they had to offer.

After walking through the neighborhoods of Princeton and across a multi-lane roadway, my friend and I reached the Princeton Shopping Center. Beware: the Apple Maps location will bring you to a random Dunkin’ Donuts. The actual restaurant, I discovered, is located next to a lovely outdoor seating area with white picnic tables and Adirondack chairs. The outside is clean and modern, but once inside the restaurant, you are greeted with a colorful accent wall contrasting dark teal and warm-toned wooden tables. There are plants lining the seating area and woven lamps hanging from the ceiling. At lunchtime, Wonder Pho was surprisingly busy for a newly-opened restaurant, but we were seated quickly at a small, inviting table in the corner.

Service was prompt, with mason jars of cool lemon-mint water swiftly greeting us. Wonder Pho was abuzz with the background chatter of happy diners and the res -

taurant’s soft pop playlist. For appetizers, I ordered the summer rolls and spring rolls. The summer rolls came out within a few minutes. The shrimp was fresh, perfectly cooked, and the hints of mint and strips of cucumber added a refreshing taste and good crunch. The peanut dipping sauce was the perfect addition to the plate, adding a rich, creamy taste and tang that complemented the light flavors of the roll.

After a couple more minutes, the spring rolls arrived. Four of them were plated with a sweet Nuoc Cham (fish) sauce. The spring rolls were the perfect level of crispy. But while the pork and shrimp filling sounded good when I was ordering, the flavors overwhelmed each other, and the dish was much greasier than I had expected. However, I did enjoy the taste of the sauce, as its slightly sour taste somewhat offset the greasiness of the rolls.

For the entree, I ordered the namesake Wonder Pho. With thinly sliced raw beef, cooked, braised short ribs, and Vietnamese-style beef balls, the dish sounded like a meat-lover’s dream. I added bean sprouts and lime and ate away. I am normally happy with any pho dish, but this one was especially good. The broth was served at the perfect slurpable temperature, and the umami taste was very strong. I honestly could have just had the broth and been satisfied. The rice noodles were the perfect thinness for slurping, and the various kinds of beef were fantastic. I was not a fan of the beef balls, however, as I found them too spongy and a little tasteless. A big bottle of hoisin sauce was available on the table, allowing me to add the perfect amount of sweet and salty to the meat.

For dessert, I attempted to order the mango sticky rice. Sadly, I was informed that they were all out and

the wait time would be around an hour. Instead, I ordered the ube ice cream, which was recommended by the waiter as a popular item. When it arrived at our table, it looked unreal, a shade of purple that only exists in sci-fi fantasies. The ice cream was topped with little purple cereal bits and two rolled wafer cookies to complete the dish. I was excited to try it but was disappointed by the taste of the ice cream. It had almost no ube flavor at all, tasting exactly like the vanilla ice cream available in Princeton’s dining halls. If I had wanted perfectly purple vanilla ice cream, I would have been ecstatic, but it lacked the ube flavor I was

seeking.

Wonder Pho’s menu offerings were tasty but not mind-blowing. If you need an escape from campus or have the time to kill, Wonder Pho, with its quick service and pleasant atmosphere, may be worth the trip. But since the 40 minute trek (and $12 Uber back) was my introduction to Princeton’s food scene, I’m looking forward to trying other restaurants that are closer to campus.

Caroline Naughton is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. She can be reached at cn8578@princeton.edu.

CAROLINE NAUGHTON / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN A display of food and drink at Wonder Pho.

By

‘I & You: The Musical’ delivers spinning sets and shallow surprises

With splashes of hot pink and deep blue enlivening the set; a myriad of grungy, vibrant posters spanning the walls; and lots of twinkling neon fairy lights, the perfect word to describe “I&You: The Musical” is “colorful.”

Showing Sep. 13 to Oct. 12 in Berlind Theatre, “I & You: The Musical” tells the heartfelt and enthralling story of an encounter between two high school students, Caroline and Anthony, who bond while rushing to complete a class project about Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself” the night before it’s due. The musical was commissioned by McCarter Theatre and written by playwright Lauren Gunderson.

Caroline — played by Jasmine Forsberg — suffers from a chronic liver disease and has been out of school for most of her life. She’s easily irritable, sassy, and most

of all, lonely. On the other hand, Anthony — portrayed by Benji Santiago — is clumsy but well-intentioned, and predominantly occupied with school and basketball.

The show begins with the number “Caroline,” in which the female lead, lying on her bunk bed, expresses her moodiness. She is dramatically interrupted when curly-headed jock Anthony bursts through her door, banking on the art-savvy Caroline to rescue his project.

Unfortunately for Anthony, Caroline hates poetry, doesn’t know who Walt Whitman is, and most importantly, despises “nice” people and “niceties.” To her, Anthony is just a “pretty boy” who only knows how to flash a smile and count on his luck. Perhaps his smile is more charming than she initially thought — or maybe it’s the waffle fries he offers her— because Caroline eventually begrudgingly

agrees to help him.

From there, the two bicker, tumble around the stage, read excerpts from “Song of Myself” together, and eventually bond over Whitman being a “badass.” Their growing connection begins to spark with the number “Every Atom,” and builds in “Spotted Hawk” and “Know Me Like That.” Forsberg’s theatrical and vocal performance in every song was striking. Of particular note was her incorporation of vocal runs that mimicked a hawk in “Spotted Hawk,” which were incredibly realistic, yet somehow blended seamlessly with the rest of the singing.

Apart from the music, I also particularly appreciated Caroline’s character development. She wasn’t bound to the stereotypical and restricting limits of being the “sick character,” with Gunderson finding plenty of avenues to honor what the character might have done with an abundance of free time. However, there were some unsatisfying moments relating to her character — for example, an especially sentimental moment when she surprises Anthony by playing the guitar, beginning to reveal personal details such as how she used to love American Girl dolls and her favorite flavor of ice cream, Chunky Monkey. While I appreciated the moment, this scene felt superficial and surface-level. The facts Caroline shared felt like a gimmicky way to score sympathetic brownie points with the audience without actually revealing anything about her as a character.

On a more positive note, I loved the meaning of the title, “I&You.” In the poem “Song of Myself,” Whitman uses the pronouns “I” and “you” interchangeably: “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” for example. This

ties neatly back into Caroline and Anthony’s blossoming relationship. Although the duo is worlds apart in terms of personality, they complement and complete each other — which becomes literal by the end of the musical (spoilers!).

Just as they’re both becoming semi-cognizant of their feelings, Anthony takes a step back. The show shifts into a much darker tone as he sings “I and This Mystery,” revealing that a member of his basketball team recently died on the court. The rest of the musical operates on higher stakes as the two navigate not only Anthony’s ability to process the events, but also face the implications of Caroline’s growing sickness.

While the overall premise of the play was slightly overdone, the show’s production features some of the most dynamic technical elements I’ve ever witnessed. A projector in the background serves as a complementary visual aid throughout most of the musical, displaying stars, colorful waves, and a plethora of other stimuli (and stealing the show during the second to last scene). The most surprising element of the set by far is that it literally comes apart: in the final scene, the roof of the room lifts into the ceiling, and each side of the set spins off in opposite directions. Despite the play’s writing sometimes drifting into the predictable, the final projector scene and visual effects alone were worth the watch for an amateur musicalgoer like me.

Kaichen Chou, member of the Class of 2029, is a contributing writer for the Prospect and a copy staffer. She can be reached at kc2050[at]princeton.edu.

‘Turn the Light Around’ brings photosynthesis to the darkroom

What if the muse was repurposed to make the art itself? As efforts to conserve the natural world become more urgent, filmmakers Katherine Bauer and Joyce Lainé are shining a light on the potential plants hold, both on the silver screen and in the darkroom.

The duo came to Princeton’s James Stewart Film Theater on Oct. 6 to share their presentation Turn the Light Around: 16mm Performative Plant-Processed Films.

Bauer and Lainé are members of Atelier MTK, a 30-year old French film lab, and Le Ratoire, a film collective that stages, shoots, develops, and edits their films in a single go. Bauer and Lainé presented nine Le Ratoire’s shorts, each strip of analog film developed using a mixture derived from the plants native to the shooting locations.

One such plant, stinging nettles, was used to develop the film for “Friendship is not Always like Cross-country Skiing,” the second short shown in the collection. Dripping with carefree nostalgia, the sun-soaked film shows naked bodies swimming freely in the woods, their figures intercut with shots of the local flora. Serenaded by the backdrop of errant music, the film highlights the freedom and release found by its subjects in the wilderness. “The luscious bodies of summer shimmer with the colors of the plant,” Bauer announced when introducing the film.

After the screening of the films, Bauer explained the origins of Le Ratiore’s unique approach. Vitamin C, caffeic acid, hydroquinone, metals, and tannins traditionally make up the darkroom chemicals used to develop analog

film. Vitamin C is the most crucial part of this formula, and it was often combined with instant coffee in the ’80s to give films and photos a darker color. In some cases, tea made from plants was used to replace coffee.

“So it was our knowledge of the way this formula was working and trying to push it even further, so that you wouldn’t have to buy anything,” Bauer said. “Maybe we could see if the plants, if we [gave] them a chance, and we [made] the tea stronger, would actually work on [their] own.”

Attempting to replicate this chemistry with plants alone led to lots of trial and error, the lab brewing concoctions of sage, thyme, and poppies. The group eventually came to the conclusion that most plants, with the exception of weaker grasses, can be used to develop films — although the results and wait time vary due to the different chemical profiles.

The penultimate short, “Bat Nut,” conveys the presentation’s overall tie to conservation. This segment depicts the removal of water chestnuts from  a place called Beaver Pond. The water chestnut, or bat nut, has posed a threat to native aquatic life and has prevented locals from enjoying the pond due to fears of being stabbed by the nut’s spiky thorns.

“So we [threw] a party to remove her excess and chop and cook her up for a developer of the film,” Bauer announced to the crowd as scenes of the collective joyfully removing the plant filled the screen. Their restoration is a cause for celebration, upbeat music playing over the group’s efforts. Bauer later revealed after the presenta-

tion that this was the same music played during the bonfire they had while processing the film.

The final short “Asphalt Splendor” explores the collective’s journey as they canoe down the Hudson River, traveling from Troy, near Albany, to the Hudson River’s deepest point. “For three weeks, at the end of the summer of 2023, we collected sounds and images of our encounter with people, animals, vegetation, industries, and more as we lived amongst them, going along the river,” Bauer stated when introducing the film.

One local of the Hudson River area, whose interview was included in this segment, explained her powerful connection with the river’s trees.

“My life’s been uprooted so many times, [I always had] the fear of being ungrounded and so losing my life force as a result of it. But the trees kept me rooted in New York and in my true nature,” she said.

Presenting a holistic view of both the collective’s travels and the area as a whole, this last film underscores the Hudson River’s significance to not only the local wildlife and plantlife, but also those who call the region home. Bauer and Lainé’s usage of plant-based film developers adds layers of beauty to their pieces. The film collection reemphasizes the lab’s commitment to eco-friendly film-making and the environment, while illuminating the versatility and joys of the natural world.

Mia Mazzeo is a contributing writer for The Prospect and is a member of the Class of 2029. She can be reached at mm4755@princeton.edu.

KAICHEN CHOU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Set of

By Mia Mazzeo | Prospect Contributor

Kaichen Chou | Prospect Contributor

All my sins: Theatre Intime’s 2025 production of ‘All My Sons’

By Zane Mills VanWicklen Prospect Contributor

Theatre Intime’s production of “All My Sons” begins with a series of crosscuts: A rocking chair in a quaint Midwestern home, white steel lawn chairs, and a tree with fallen apples scattered beneath. A flickering blue light, rain pattering. Lights off, then on. The rain roars. The blue light flicks in and out. A moment later, thunder roars and flashes of light explode from either side of the stage. Lights off.

The result: The scene re-illuminates with businessman Joe Keller, played by Joe McLean ’27, smoking a cigar and reading the morning paper, the audience watching rapt.

“All My Sons,” written by the renowned Arthur Miller (“The Crucible”), tells the story of a middle-class family living at ease in the blissful countryside. It has been three years since Larry Keller, a World War II soldier, went missing. His mother, Kate, still desperately hopes for his return despite all odds. When Larry’s memorial tree is struck down in a thunderstorm at the start of the play, his disappearance while flying a warplane returns to the forefront of the family’s minds. With the arrival of childhood family friend Ann Deveer, father Joe Keller’s lies come to surface, and the life he built for his family comes crashing down.

Social tension pervades the play. Moments of silence or characters’ sudden departures from scenes towards the beginning foreshadow the heavier tension that would come to rack the family, leading to the loss of many lives and the demise of those closest to them.

It felt like a performance within a performance: The actors portrayed

characters who were themselves acting. The characters lied and struggled against truths they knew to be irrefutable. The actors did a wonderful job rendering this dichotomy, from fiddling with set pieces or standing awkwardly center stage.

Theater Intime’s production was brought to life by Christie Davis ’27, returning to direct another play at the venue.

Davis is a former Opinion writer for The Daily Princetonian.

“The authorities in our lives, whether they be parental or systemic,” are often flawed, Davis told me, leaving us to make “decisions about how we engage with the world.” This play zooms into parental systems, asking if our parents are just as flawed and fallible as any other person.

Through Miller’s subtle dialogue and abrupt twists, the audience learns how Joe Keller’s greed led to terrible repercussions and how he painted over it all to provide for his family. The play sets up Joe Keller as a man of the military-industrial complex and an emblem of the American Dream, and critiques the U.S. World War II era by portraying his downfall.

The performances are striking, with McLean and Will Grimes ’27 playing oppositional characters with dynamism and motive. McLean as the brooding Joe Keller stunned the audience with his masterful portrayal of the family patriarch. Whether he stormed the stage in fury as his lies were unearthed or simply entered the scene to sit in a chair, McLean brought a ghostly reality to this work of fiction. As the play progressed, I forgot he was a Princeton student as he lost himself in the role.

Son Chris Keller, portrayed by Grimes, made the audience laugh with

his dead-pan humor and watch anxiously as he unraveled his father’s lies. As he investigated his family’s past, he became a steady perspective through which the audience could view this complex work, and its wide-spanning implications of American capitalism and morality.

Although many of the laughs and the insightful dialogue were a result of thoughtful choices made in 1946 as Miller was writing, rather than those in 2025, the liberties taken from the original script also shone through.

Notably, the upper-frame of the house lifts on one side at the end of Act One, creating a lopsided effect. When the frame is down, Davis told me, it shows that the characters

are pretending that nothing is wrong, and that when it is lifted, “we’re seeing things as they actually are.” This marked a refreshing deviation from the well-worn playbook, bringing life to this famous play.

The show received a well-deserved standing ovation from the audience.

“I’ve seen a lot of really great stuff at Princeton, but I thought this was particularly really great,” said Jack Goodman ’27, one of the dozens of students who packed the theater.

Zane Mills VanWicklen is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. He can be reached at zm6261@princeton.edu.

Despite funding cuts, McCarter Theatre is

‘not going anywhere’

By Annika Plunkett | Staff Prospect Writer

Approaching its 100-year anniversary, McCarter Theatre has a long history of recruiting renowned artists to perform for the Princeton community. In the 2025–26 season alone, McCarter’s lineup features acts including Jacob Collier, Pink Martini, and Emanuel Ax. To finance these high-quality productions, McCarter has traditionally received support from public grants and corporate partners. Now, its government support has disappeared.

On May 2, the Trump administration announced plans to cut and redirect funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). For McCarter, that means no NEA funding at all. The loss translates to a reduction of approximately $200,000 in public funding this season compared to the last.

The theatre is losing funding from multiple sources. “Between the NEA and New Jersey State Council for the Arts, McCarter is expecting a threeyear impact of over $600,000 in lost funds,” Martin Miller, McCarter’s Executive Director, wrote to The Daily Princetonian. Miller added that the $600,000 represents about 1.25 percent of McCarter’s annual spending, a noticeable loss in its $17 million annual budget.

The cuts come at a time when McCarter is still recovering from the impacts of the COVID shutdown. However, as the theater looks ahead to its 100th anniversary in 2030, Miller remains optimistic.

“We’ve made a commitment not to

reduce the scope of the programs, and if anything, we’re being more ambitious than ever,” Miller wrote. “We’re not going anywhere.”

In the meantime, McCarter will continue to adjust as needed. “Even though that first impact happened in May, it’s going to be repeated this season and will be repeated again next year. So we just have to plan for it,” Miller said.

According to Miller, the greater concern these funding cuts have created is an “environment of uncertainty.” At a time when the instinct may be to reduce spending, Miller said that McCarter asks its partners — including sponsors, the University, and the very artists that grace their stages — to “stay the course with us.”

“The University values its longstanding, robust collaborations with McCarter, and we look forward to continuing that work together,” University Spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote to the ‘Prince.’

Beyond the University’s support, Miller shared stories of current and former community members taking action to support the theatre. A former Princeton resident whose family had loved McCarter, for example, sent a $10,000 check when he heard that their funding had been cut. Other community members have stopped Miller to share that they’ve taken out music, theater, and dance subscriptions at the theater. Subscribers receive exclusive benefits such as priority access, discounted prices, and flexible exchange policies.

“I’ve really come to see the arts as

something that is energizing. Even when it’s a drama or a story that is hard, there’s something about being in community with people and being a part of something, supporting the arts, that has come to mean a lot to me,” said Donna Tatro, who works at the University’s Office of Information Technology and recently took out subscriptions to McCarter shows.

According to Miller, a feeling of community is exactly what McCarter strives for. He said that the arts “remain a unique vehicle for people coming together that might not otherwise sit next to each other to experience something that may expand their

viewpoints in a way that their social media feed might not offer.”

While an enthusiastic community may not entirely fill the gap at McCarter left by funding cuts, at least for the short term, Miller still said that the solution is local.

“We all have collective power, and I think that participation is the first step,” Miller said. “Come experience these shows … get on the website and get a ticket.”

Annika Plunkett is a staff writer for The Prospect and a member of the Newsletter team. She can be reached at ap3616@princeton.edu.

ZANE MILLS VANWICKLEN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN The actors of “All My Sons” take a bow.

JOSÉ PABLO FERNÁNDEZ GARCÍA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Outside McCarter Theater Center.

The Prospect 11 Weekly Event Roundup

By Mackenzie Hollingsworth, Head Prospect Editor

Princeton Saxophone Ensemble Fall Concert

Art Museum Student Preview

Oct. 25, 7–11 p.m.

Princeton University Art Museum

Come check out the new Art Museum at its student preview! The preview will include performances from various student groups, food, drinks, a film screening of “Night at the Museum,” and art making with the Kathleen Compton Sherrerd Creativity Lab & Laporte Family Creativity Lab. All students will need to bring their PUID for access.

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5

Fund for Irish Studies: Aoife Kelleher screens

Mrs. Robinson

Oct. 30, 4:30 p.m.

James Stewart Film Theatre, 185 Nassau St.

Aoife Kelleher will screen her feature documentary, “Mrs. Robinson,” telling the story of Ireland’s first female president. The film was nominated for the George Morrison Feature Documentary Award at the 2025 Irish Film & Television Awards. Following the screening, there will be a Q&A with the filmmaker. Free tickets are required.

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Oct. 25, 7:30 p.m.

Frist Campus Theatre

The Princeton Saxophone Ensemble, Princeton’s only group dedicated to chamber saxophone perfor- mance, will have its inaugural concert on Oct. 25. Music will range from popular songs to iconic film music. Tickets are required; $5 for general admission and free for students.

W+W+W = Back to Oz

Oct. 27, 5:15 p.m.

Donald D Drapkin Studio, Lewis Arts Complex

This panel, moderated by Professor of Theater and Music Theater Stacy Wolf, will discuss the decades- long impact of “The Wizard of Oz.” The panel will include Lecturer in Dance Dyane-Harvey Salaam, Pro- gram Associate for Theater & Music Theater Joe Fonseca, and Sam Gravite ’17, who starred as Fiyero in the Broadway and national touring companies of Wicked. The event will also feature a guest performance by the Princeton Playhouse Choir led by Solon Snider Sway. This event is free and open to the University community.

Reading by Maya Marshall and Creative Writing Seniors

Oct. 28, 6 p.m.

Labyrinth Books

The C.K. Williams Reading Series showcases senior theses in the Program in Creative Writing. The event also includes readings from established writers. Maya Marshall, an award-winning poet and 2024 Princeton Holmes Poetry Prize winner, will attend as a special guest, and her books will be available for purchase and signing. This event is free and open to the public.

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Princeton Bhangra Presents KAYINAAT: A Journey Across the Cosmos

Oct. 24–25, 8 p.m.

Hamilton Murray Theatre

This is Princeton Bhangra’s first show of the year. They perform high-energy dance that has origins from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan. Tickets are required and are available for purchase on the University ticketing website. Student tickets are $8, and tickets for the general public are $9.

Princeton Sound Kitchen: Sound Installations

Oct. 24–25, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.; Oct. 26, 10 a.m.–7 p.m. CoLab, Lewis Arts Complex

Princeton University graduate students Gulli Björnsson, Sophie Cash, Ellie Cherry, Liam Elliot, and Hannah Ishizaki present an exhibition of sound installations. This exhibition is free and unticketed.

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Princeton’s Annual Hometown Halloween Parade

Oct. 24, 5–6 p.m.

On the Green at Palmer Square

Join the Princeton community at the Green on Palmer Square for a Halloween celebration. The parade will step off at 5:30 p.m. and head to the YMCA, where there will be a screening of Monsters Inc. at 6:30 p.m. This is free and open to all.

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Halloween With Sinfonia

Oct. 30, 7:30 p.m.

Richardson Auditorium

Join Sinfonia in celebrating Hal- loween as they put on their first per- formance of the academic year, “Hal- loween with Sinfonia.” Tickets are required. Student tickets are $6, and tickets for the general public are $16.

A Masterclass with Mariko Anraku, harp

Oct. 26, 3–5 p.m.

Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall

The Donna Weng Friedman ’80 Masterclass Series gives students a chance to connect one-on-one with professional performers in a workshop format. This masterclass will be led by Juilliard gradu- ate and celebrated harpist Mariko Anraku. This event is free and unticketed.

Exhibition: The House Transformed Gallery Talks

Exhibition: Sept. 25, 2025–Jan. 9, 2026; Monday to Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Gallery Talks: Oct. 27 at 12:15 p.m. and Oct. 29 at 6 p.m.

“The House Transformed” calls viewers to imagine what a home can look like for a household that does not fit the “nuclear” structure. On Oct. 27, there will be a gallery talk between Preston Scott Cohen and architecture professor Mónica Ponce de León at 12:15 p.m. Another gallery talk will take place on Oct. 29 between Steven Holl and Ponce de León. This exhibition is free and open to the public.

FIELD HOCKEY

Down goes No. 1: No. 6 field hockey defeats defending champion Northwestern 3–2

By Emilia Reay Staff Sports Writer

No. 6 Princeton (8–3 overall, 3–1 Ivy League) beat No. 1 Northwestern (11–1, 3–0 Big Ten Conference) on Monday, snapping the Wildcats’ 15game winning streak, which included their NCAA Championship win last year. Following the matchup, Northwestern dropped to No. 5 in the rankings.

Princeton came out hot in the first quarter, producing two shot attempts in the game’s first three minutes. With 9:30 remaining, sophomore forward Pru Lindsey drew an attack corner for the Tigers. Taking advantage of these corners has been an integral part of Princeton’s success, and on the Wildcats’ pitch, they were able to do so. Junior defender Ottilie Sykes drove it in from dead on, making the game 1–0. “Our attack penalty corners were finally on. We had a lot of great play inside the attack 25 to get a lot of shots and cor-

FIELD HOCKEY

No. 6

ners and to create opportunity.

Our players were really dialed in and it showed,” Head Coach Carla Tagliente told The Daily Princetonian.

Northwestern had a couple of shots on goal to end the first quarter, with multiple from former Princeton Tiger Grace Schulze ’25, but they couldn’t get past junior goalie Olivia Caponiti and the Princeton defense.

Like the first quarter, the second started with shots from Lindsey, but she couldn’t connect. This quarter’s momentum favored Northwestern, who drew five corners against Princeton in just four minutes.

The only first-half goal allowed by Princeton originated from this corner frenzy: Northwestern recorded a goal on the fourth corner play to equalize the score. Going into halftime, it was an even 1–1 at Lakeside Field.

“I thought we were pretty focused at halftime. It was about continuing to keep up our lev-

el of play, our intensity, and work as a team,” senior midfielder Beth Yeager told the ‘Prince’ about the first half.

To start the third quarter, first-year forward/midfielder Saylor Milone had two shots, but couldn’t get them to drop. With 8:35 left to play in the quarter, sophomore midfielder Molly Nye gave Princeton what they were looking for. Assisted by sophomore forward/midfielder Lilly Wojick and with defenders circling, Nye sent the ball to the opposite weak side of the cage.

“It was a really pretty pass in from Lilly Wojcik,” Nye told the ‘Prince’ about the moment she scored. “I was holding down low, when I saw it go through. I didn’t think too much; just tried to push it in. It worked out, it was a great feeling. It re-amped everyone to keep fighting.”

Princeton was up 2–1 going into the fourth quarter with 15 minutes to go. At the top of the quarter, two green cards were issued to Northwestern as they

tried to tie up the score. Princeton was able to make the most of their numerical advantage during this penalty period, resulting in another goal from Yeager — the 50th goal of her collegiate career, delivered with her signature drag flick.

Princeton was now up 3–1. With about five minutes left in the game, however, Yeager was given a green card. The Tigers would have to hold their own without their Olympian against one of the best teams in the league.

Northwestern didn’t go down without a fight. Ashley Sessa gave hope to the Wildcats, scoring off of a Schulze assist with 4:32 remaining. It was now just a one-point game. In the final minutes, Northwestern resorted to removing their keeper to gain another field player to generate offense. This tactic worked, to a point: Northwestern had three corners in the concluding 30 seconds, but the ball never got past Princeton’s Ca -

field hockey cruises past No. 13

Monmouth, 5–1

By Emilia Reay & Cadigan Perriello Staff Sports Writer & Sports con-

On Sunday, No. 6 Princeton field hockey (4–1 Ivy League, 10–3 overall) came up with a decisive win against No. 13 Monmouth (3–0 Coastal Athletic Association, 10–3 overall) at home at Bedford Field. Monmouth had only lost to Ivy League opponents prior to this game, and Princeton continued the streak.

From the first whistle, Monmouth presented an aggressive man-to-man defense. Their strong defensive pressure created quick momentum in Tiger territory during the first minutes of the quarter.

“It was great that we didn’t go individual,” first-year midfielder Caitlin Thompson told The Daily Princetonian when asked about how the Tigers managed the Hawks’ defense. “Often when you get pinned down and tired, you can go to yourself to take on the players. We just kept using our screens to find connections.”

“Our defense is so good at changing up the outlet and continuing to float balls into space away from defenders,” she added.

After adjusting to the Monmouth defense, the Tigers worked strong attack progressions up the right side, but by the end of the first quarter, the score remained at 0–0.

“Our press struggled to get out of the gates, but once we fixed it, we created more counterattack opportunities,” Head Coach Carla Tagliente said.

Early in the second quarter,

the Tigers were awarded a corner. The original corner by the Tigers was stopped by the Hawks, and junior midfielder Ella Cashman took the pass wide on the right for a lifted ball into the middle of the circle. At the 12:25 mark in the second quarter, senior midfielder Beth Yeager, who was named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week, finished Cashman’s work with a tip into the Hawks’ goal. Princeton led 1–0.

The momentum briefly shifted back to the Hawks with an offensive push ending in a defensive corner for the Tigers at the 9:22 mark. Yet, Monmouth couldn’t convert the corner into a goal. Junior goalie Olivia Caponiti led the defense to a stop and a progression out of the Tigers’ circle. Caponiti received Ivy League praise for her performance, earning Defensive Player of the Week. Overall, Princeton’s defense held the Hawks to just five attacking penalty corners during the game.

To end the first half, Princeton scored its second goal from another corner. Yeager completed a play to goal with a drag flick with less than a minute to go. Even entering halftime leading 2–0, the Tigers still felt that they had more to show for themselves.

“At halftime, we knew that we weren’t playing to our full potential. But we were still getting shots on goal, and we just wanted to keep going forward because we’ve had a big weekend — but that isn’t an excuse to let anything start sliding,” Thompson told the ‘Prince.’ Princeton dominated the sec-

poniti. Of Caponiti’s six saves on Monday, two were in the last 30 seconds of the game. After the nailbiting finish, Princeton proved victorious against Northwestern, with a final score of 3–2.

“Cash [junior midfielder Ella Cashman] said that she had a dream about beating them,” Nye told the ‘Prince.’ “We all were very much ready. We came all the way out here and were ready to finally put away one of these top teams. We’ve had so many battles. It was nice to get a win in one of them.”

Against Northwestern, Princeton showed that they are the strongest cats in the jungle of NCAA D1 Field Hockey. They are set to battle Cornell this Friday at home at Bedford Field.

Emilia Reay is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince’ and the Spanish Language Pilot Program Director.

ond half with aggressive attacking and a strong forward press, leading to numerous scoring opportunities.

Around the middle of the third quarter, the Tigers earned three successive corners. While none led to points, they emphasized Princeton’s control of the game.

Monmouth countered with two corners, though the Tigers kept their composure. Caponiti had two saves off of one of the corners, and junior defender Ottilie Sykes also made a save during the play.

“Monmouth swept it, I made the first save, then there was a rebound,” Caponiti said about the Tigers’ defense during the play. “There were a whole bunch of people, like tipping, I went to go save it, and I ended up on the

ground. Then Ott [Sykes] had a beautiful goalline save. Everyone was there just trying to hit the ball out, so it was really a team effort.”

Sophomore midfielder Molly Nye converted the defensive energy to offensive energy, and the momentum carried to the end of the quarter. Nye earned the Tigers a corner, and she scored the Tigers’ third goal with an assist from Cashman.

While the game could have ended 3–0, the Tigers didn’t settle. They were awarded a corner only about a minute into the final quarter, and Yeager unleashed her signature drag flick. This time, it was tipped in by Thompson, putting the Tigers up 4–0.

Monmouth showed a glimmer of hope, getting one past Capo-

niti toward the end of the game, but Thompson retaliated with her second goal of the game, the fifth and final goal for Princeton. Thompson was assisted by fellow first-year midfielder Tabby Vaughan. The final score was 5–1. Princeton had a season-high shot statistic against the Hawks with 30 shots, 10 of which occurred in the final quarter.

The Tigers look to continue their perfect 5–0 away game winning streak with an Ivy League game in Providence against No. 20 Brown this Friday.

Emilia Reay is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince’ and the Spanish Language Pilot Program Director.

Cadigan Perriello is a Sports contributor for the ‘Prince.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF PRINCETON ATHLETICS. Field hockey will take on Brown this Friday in Providence.

FOOTBALL

Princeton Football strikes again: Brown Bears taken down in 40–21 rout

By Jordan Halagao Sports Contributor

Princeton Football (3–2 overall, 2–0 Ivy League) took to the road Saturday afternoon to take on the Brown University Bears (3–2, 0–2) in sunny Providence, R.I. A dominant performance on the offense and big plays on defense led to a convincing victory for the Tigers.

Coming off a tough loss against Mercer the week prior, the Tigers were looking for a bounceback win. The offensive line was key to the victory, giving senior quarterback Kai Colón, who got the majority of playing time at quarterback, ample time in his dropbacks. Additionally, the offensive line paved the way for a successful rushing attack of 195 yards, compared to just 66 the previous week.

“The guys up front did a great job,” senior running back Ethan Clark, who averaged 7.1 yards per carry, told The Daily Princetonian. “It felt like every single run there was a wide open hole, so that’s all credit to them and we just executed all of that.”

The offense put together a series of solid completions and strong runs to march down the field on the game’s opening drive. The Tigers continued the drive through the fourth down twice, once on Brown’s 36-yard line and then again on their 3-yard line. Their aggressiveness paid off, allowing them to take an early 7–0 lead to set the game’s tone.

On the ensuing drive, Brown recovered a muffed punt, giving them the ball in Princeton territory. They capitalized quickly, ripping a 27-yard touchdown rush on the next play to square up the game for the Bears at 7–7.

With 4:17 left in the first quarter, Brown quarterback James Murphy dropped back and felt the pressure of a Princeton blitz. Murphy overshot his receiver, and senior defensive back Nasir Hill tipped the ball

right into the hands of senior linebacker Jalen Jones, who would return it to the Brown 21-yard line.

The Princeton offense failed to convert a first down, settling with a 37-yard field goal from junior kicker Esteban Nunez Perez to take a 10–7 advantage.

Brown then marched down the field to take back the lead with a 15-play, 75-yard drive to make it 14–10. The drive included two key fourth down pickups, including a 4th-and-5 at the Princeton 36 and a 4thand-goal situation on the Princeton oneyard line.

Though Colón would be picked off on a long pass towards the endzone on the ensuing drive, the Princeton defense quickly forced a Brown punt. It did not get much air time, and the Tigers started on the Brown 37-yard line, even better field position than before the interception.

Flushing his mistake, Colón dished the ball to first-year wide-receiver Josh Robinson for a touchdown, Robinson’s first as a Tiger, on a well-placed dime. Robinson was named Ivy Rookie of the Week for two weeks in a row going into Saturday’s game and recorded yet another impressive performance of eight catches for 91 receiving yards.

“He’s so fast, twitchy, great hands, goes and attacks the ball,” Colón said. “It’s so much fun throwing to a guy like that that I know is gonna make a play once I get it in his hands.”

Late in the second, the Tigers took over after they stopped Brown on fourth down. Perez tacked on 3 later in the drive with a 29-yard field goal to make the game 20–14 before the teams hit the locker rooms.

Looking to take back the lead in the second half’s opening drive, Brown steadily drove into Princeton territory. However, junior defensive back Torian Roberts had other plans and picked off Murphy in a shot to the endzone. Though Princeton would go three-and-out, a muffed punt

scooped up by sophomore linebacker Sam McCormick put the Tigers at the Brown 44-yard line.

The offense hit a groove, making easy work of a fatigued Brown defense that got little rest off the field after the two Brown turnovers. Sophomore quarterback Asher Weiner subbed in on the one-yard line to punch it in on a quarterback keeper for the Tigers’ third touchdown of the day. After a failed two-point conversion, the score was 26–14.

With all the momentum on their side, the Orange and Black looked comfortable on their next offensive possession. Two explosive plays from sophomore running back Kai Honda of 20 and 34 yards, respectively, set up a 12-yard touchdown run from Clark. After a successful PAT from Nunez Perez, the score was 33–14.

Early in the fourth quarter, Brown

scored a much-needed touchdown on their next drive to cut the deficit to a twoscore game. After stopping the Tigers’ ensuing drive, the Bears started deep in their own territory, after junior punter Brady Clark pinned Brown inside their own ten.

Brown’s comeback hopes were shortlived as Hill snagged Murphy’s first pass out of the air to record the defense’s third interception and effectively ice the game for the Orange and Black. A two-yard touchdown rush from Honda a few plays later was icing on the cake, bringing the game to the final score of 40–21.

This weekend, the Tigers found themselves playing a far less competitive Brown team compared to the prior week’s matchup against Mercer. But Princeton also made some key changes on offense, including holding onto the ball better

and creating a thriving run game. On defense, the Tigers got key turnovers to keep Brown at bay and much improved their coverage from the week before.

The Princeton Tigers look to take their momentum into their homecoming game against undefeated rival Harvard University (5–0, 2–0) at Powers Field on October 25th at 12 p.m.

“[Harvard] has been playing top football,” Head Coach Bob Surace ’90 said when asked about the Harvard matchup. “We’re going to have to have another great week of practice to have the same opportunity we had this week.”

Jordan Halagao is a Sports contributor for the ‘Prince.’

By Miriam Dube & Ava DiFelice Contributing Archivists

On October 21, 1947, Princetonians anxiously awaited an impending legal decision. “Shall the people of the Borough of Princeton have their milk delivered, read the papers, drive their cars and enjoy such entertainment as movies, bowling or baseball games on Sunday?” asked Philip F. Ruppel ’50 in the pages of The Daily Princetonian.

The referendum — to be voted on by township residents in the coming weeks — concerned New Jersey’s long-standing legal prohibitions banning activity on the day of the Sabbath. Originally enacted in 1704, the so-called “Blue Laws” were codified in a 1798 ruling entitled the “Act to Suppress Vice and Immorality.” They not only banned Sunday business operations and deliveries, but also leisure activities and nonessential travel. The sale of liquor, however, was still permitted.

The laws were originally established in an effort to preserve the Christian day of rest from commerce and recreation, but their continued enforcement was more appealing to some New Jersey residents than

others. Opponents to Blue Laws nationwide felt that they violated the separation between church and state specified in the First Amendment.

Then, in 1943, New Jersey Governor Charles Edison relaxed the Blue Laws to allow servicemen living on the University’s campus to enjoy Sunday movie screenings as World War II raged abroad. With the War having ended, the 1947 referendum raised the question as to whether this exemption signified a changing sentiment within the town. Should Sundays be spent any way one pleased?

The University’s religious authorities held split opinions on the matter. While Princeton’s Catholic and Episcopal chaplains stated that they didn’t mind allowing the screenings to continue, the Presbyterian chaplain and town Methodist minister were both strictly opposed to the possibility. Charles R. Erdman Jr. ’19, Princeton’s sole mayoral candidate in the upcoming election of 1947, held a middling opinion, urging a balance between religion and secularism. When questioned by ‘Prince’ staff, Erdman claimed that he was “not for a general opening [of commercial amusements],” but that he would “not be opposed

to a limited opening which just includes the movies.”

In the end, Princeton Township residents, the ultimate decision makers, made their voices heard. In a decisive 1317–627 vote, the Blue Laws’ recreation restrictions were struck down. However, a related proposal to ban the sale of liquor on Sundays was enacted in its place by a 482–411 vote.

Nowadays, many Princetonians would not think twice before purchasing a Sunday movie ticket or a latte at Small World.

Yet in today’s secular world, religious students are still tasked with striking a balance between their academic demands and adherence to their beliefs. Matthew Martino ’29 attends Catholic mass every day and observes the Sabbath on Sundays. Although the Sabbath is often designated as a day of complete rest in the Christian tradition, Martino said that he must still engage with his schoolwork on Sundays in order to keep up with his busy schedule, and that attending daily masses is “hard with [his] classload.”

But, like the residents of Princeton in 1947, Martino does not view the Blue Laws as necessary for Christian students to balance their academic and religious identi-

ties. “The whole idea of American law is the separation of church and state,” Martino said. “It shouldn’t be a law.” At the same time, he spotlighted individual actors’ autonomy to decide the extent to which they express their religious practices, suggesting that “any company that holds Christian values over the making of profit … should observe the Sabbath” and adhere to their own personal set of Blue Laws. Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby, for instance, are closed on Sundays.

Christian students aren’t the only religious group that maintains a weekly day of rest. Observant Jews, for instance, refrain from working from Friday to Saturday night. Princeton has several mechanisms to support students who observe Shabbat, including offering physical room keys and an eruv, a symbolic enclosure that allows them to carry objects around town.

For many students today, however, Sundays are anything but a day of rest. There is laundry to do, reading responses to submit, and p-sets to finish — perhaps with an iced matcha to curb the “Sunday Scaries.”

Miriam Dube and Ava DiFelice are contributing Archivists for the ‘Prince.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF @PRINCETONFTBL / X

The Tigers face the undefeated No. 18 Harvard Crimson in a blockbuster Ivy League matchup next week.